This unconventional portrait of Brian Wilson, the mercurial singer-songwriter and leader of The Beach Boys, intimately examines the personal voyage and ultimate salvation of a music icon whose success came at extraordinary personal cost.

Few musical acts are as widely beloved as the Beach Boys. Under the visionary leadership of Brian Wilson, the California surf combo redefined the sound of American popular music in the 1960s. But their joyful harmonies and ingenious arrangements concealed Wilson’s private struggle with addiction and mental illness. Dispensing with staid music biopic conventions, director Bill Pohlad’s film nimbly intercuts between two key periods in Wilson’s life - his 60’s rise to stardom with the Beach Boys and his remarkable 80’s solo resurgence. Paul Dano stars as the younger Wilson, his superb performance conveying the singer’s prodigious gifts as well as his increasingly precarious mental state; whilst John Cusack is equally compelling as the middle-aged Wilson, emerging from a mental breakdown on the back of the critically adored/commercial disaster of Pet Sounds.

An eloquent tribute to a great American innovator, this intimate rendering of Wilson’s mercurial genius illustrates both his musical mastery and the psychological pain it disguised. Where would we be without the timeless, era-defining music of Wilson’s back catalogue? God only knows…

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