Love & Mercy

The film alternates between the 1960s and the 1980s. The early timeline begins with a young Brian Wilson (Paul Dano) suffering a panic attack on an airplane. It is agreed with the rest of The Beach Boys that Brian will no longer tour with them and will instead focus on composition and studio work. Despite resistance from some of his bandmates, Brian completes the Pet Sounds album. It is a critical hit, but sales are underwhelming. LSD is supplied to Brian by a coterie of hippie vagrants who praise him as a "genius", and his mental health subsequently worsens. After the success of a new single, "Good Vibrations", he fails to complete the album "Smile," his would-be masterpiece. As Brian's bandmates record their next record without him, he learns that his father has sold the publishing rights to the Beach Boys' songs without their knowledge. This timeline ends with Brian apathetic and detached from life. In the 1980s, an older and heavily medicated Brian (Jon Cusack) meets Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks), a Cadillac saleswoman. She begins a relationship with him, but is disturbed by the controlling influence Brian's therapist and legal guardian Dr. Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti) has over Brian's life. Eventually, she disengages from the relationship, but not before providing evidence to Brian's family that Landy has been made a beneficiary in his will. This leads to a restraining order being taken out to prevent Landy from seeing Brian, who begins a new and more appropriate course of treatment. A few years later Brian bumps into Ledbetter again while walking across an intersection, and they eventually get married. The credit roll displays a live performance by Wilson of "Love and Mercy."