Page 16
July 15, 2015
The Genius Who Powered the Beach Boys
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answering the question of how Wilson be-
came the lost soul who was wealthy and
famous but was not allowed to make the
smallest decisions for himself -- yet it pro-
vides illuminating glimmers into a story
beyond explanation.
The challenges of depicting the later
Wilson equal those of depicting his youth-
ful self. How to portray a lovely woman
selling Cadillacs who falls for Wilson in
the midst of her confusion and occasion-
al alarm over his circumstances? How to
make sense of a grown man so damaged
and in bondage to a psychologist who
controlled his every move? How to depict
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such inexplicable peril?
The scenes of Wilson’s later life match
the early-life scenes in richness and subtle-
ty. Cusack paints a believable portrait of
a man who is clearly damaged and terri-
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genuineness. And Elizabeth Banks pulls
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who grew to love Wilson under such trying
circumstances. Her tenderness and cour-
age make a remarkable kind of sense -- I
was genuinely stunned by the authenticity
of their interactions. Their scenes togeth-
er resonate with emotional intelligence;
almost everything remains unsaid, unbur-
dened by the usual movie exposition that
kills most depictions of genuine love.
Paul Giamatti likewise does chilling
work as Landy, which was yet anoth-
er kind of challenge. Because people as
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villains that would never materialize in
real life. Yet the elements of Landy’s hold
over Wilson make real emotional sense
here. I was not surprised to read later that
both Wilson and his wife have remarked
that their real life experiences were much
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in part by not overplaying its hand.
What emerges resonates beyond Wil-
son’s own story. The two parts of his life
depicted here happen to contrast two eras
of the California dream -- the relative op-
timism of the 60s, embodied by boys in-
ventively crooning about waves only one
of them had any experience cresting, and
a later period when the drive to cash in on
the dream seems more tawdry and even
dangerous.
Pohlad, who has made his career pro-
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ing “12 Years a Slave” and “The Tree of
Life”), establishes himself as an unusually
subtle director. He has elicited a portrait
of a soul who, though clearly damaged and
burdened by the gifts entrusted to his care,
turns out to be remarkably and mysterious-
ly resilient. And this wise and beautiful
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able person, and sends you back to his mu-
sic for more of the secrets hidden there.
Darleen Ortega is a judge on the Ore-
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an of color to serve in that capacity. Her
movie review column Opinionated Judge
appears regularly in The Portland Ob-
server. Find her movie blog at opinionat-
edjudge.blogspot.com.