Love And Mercy

So I went to see Love And Mercy courtesy of BAFTA Scotland.

I don't listen to the Beach Boys anything like I used. I could admire Pet Sounds while never fully growing to love it (I chuckled in sympathy when the Mike Love character declared "even the happy songs are sad").. And my favourite Beach Boys song might be "Do It Again" (a bit more elemental than Brian Wilson's more texturally sophisticated 'teenage symphonies to god'). And, kitsch points aside, music biopics can often make my toes curl to the point where a pair of Aladdin's slippers might come in handy. But, reader (you're still there, right?), I thought Love And Mercy was a great watch - sweet and inspiring and moving and fun and celebratory and more.

Sure it may have boiled together a few story strands, and invented conversations and scenes in order to help tell a story in film but gosh darn it, they were making a movie, not a 40 year-long fly-on-the-wall documentary.

So - two thumbs up from me.