Love and Mercy

One is a singer and songwriter whose lyrical and musical ingenuity led to a string of sunny chart-toppers and made him a pop-music icon. The other is a troubled loner whose mental instability turned him into an erratic recluse.

In the case of former Beach Boys frontman Brian Wilson, they are the same person. And the ambitious biopic Love and Mercy effectively pulls together those two disparate periods of Wilson’s life, about 20 years apart, but it does so with two different actors playing the same role.

So the film focuses on the 1960s, when Paul Dano plays Wilson during the seminal creative period for the Beach Boys, when his creative abilities far overshadowed his annoying eccentricities with both bandmates and fans — the latter becoming more apparent during the recording of the “Smile” album, which was later cancelled and led to battles with drug abuse and mental instability as Wilson crumbled under the pressure of fame.

And it also concentrates on a much darker period during the 1980s, when a socially awkward Wilson (John Cusack) is far removed from the spotlight. He meets Melinda (Elizabeth Banks), a used-car saleswoman who later became his wife and fought to rescue him from the overbearing grip of a psychiatrist (Paul Giamatti) with ulterior motives as his affliction consumes his life.

The episodic film makes clear early its intention to focus more on inner turmoil than sunny chart-toppers, although Beach Boys fans will have their nostalgic moments. While Wilson shaped the sound of the band with his artistic innovations, the resulting songs certainly don’t reflect his life story. In other words, his creative impulses run counter to commercial expectations, driving a wedge through the band.

Dano and Cusack don’t really look or sound alike, yet that’s not relevant in this case. It’s more about capturing the complex spirit of Wilson, and both performances are fully committed and convincing.

The film’s jumbled chronology sometimes feels too sketchy and fragmented, and too conveniently places blame to generate sympathy. However, Love and Mercy is a stylish effort from rookie director Bill Pohlad that smartly avoids a straightforward approach in portraying Wilson as a troubled genius.

His fans certainly won’t look at Wilson the same way again, knowing that behind the scenes, there weren’t many good vibrations.

Rated PG-13, 119 minutes.