An average movie

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since there was a decent cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out. To be honest, even though I obviously heard about Brian Wilson, his huge talent and his tragic life, I have to admit that I have never been a huge fan of the Beach Boys so it was pretty cool to see a movie focusing on him. However, even though the approach to go back-and-forth between two parts of his life was not bad, I’m afraid it never really worked though. I enjoyed above all Paul Dano’s performance who was a perfect choice but I have to admit that John Cusack was not bad at all though (in fact, I can’t remember the last time I saw Cusack in a decent movie like this one). Unfortunately, their performance didn't really match and it felt as if I was watching 2 interesting but unrelated movies at the same time. I mean, there is no way that Paul Dano’s autistic nerd genius would somehow become 20 years later John Cusack’s attractive and charismatic weirdo. The fact that Cusack ended up in a relationship with Elizabeth Banks made this issue even more obvious. Sure, they actually had a pretty good chemistry but is there any chance that Paul Dano’s character would eventually end up with such a gorgeous woman? It seemed really unlikely. Eventually, I wish that Dano would have played the character during both time periods (he was actually already around 10 years older than the character he played) but the other way around could have worked as well with Cusack. However, it could have been more problematic to have Cusack playing someone who was 30 years younger than he actually was while the rest of the cast was actually much closer to the age of their respective characters. Anyway, to conclude, even if this approach didn’t really work for me, it was still a decent watch though and it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Brian Wilson’s life and legacy.