From the moment the Love & Mercy film starts and the iconic music of the Beach Boys begins, I felt drawn into this story, feet tapping most of the way through the movie. Writers Oren Moverman and Michael Alan Lerner’s screenplay taps into everything about the Beach Boys we loved in the 1960s and after as well as about the mystery and surprises surrounding this group.

While concentrating on the success, fun, and dedication of the band to tour and perform catchy songs such as “Surfer Girl,” “Fun, Fun, Fun,” “Good Vibrations,” “God Only Knows” “I Get Around” and “Surfing Safari,” Brian Wilson, the genius writer of most of their music, was beginning to show signs of mental problems.

Paul Dano plays the younger Brian Wilson with musical abilities that far exceed anything we realized while dancing to the beat of those tunes in the early years. The story begins with Brian (John Cusack) as a grown man trying to make sense of his life and where it went wrong. It alternates back and forth between the 20 years earlier when their real lives began to overtake the ones behind the songs.

As Brian begins to pull some really offbeat antics that frighten everyone, he also has a panic attack on an airplane. It’s at that point he tells the band he no longer wants to fly but will stay behind and create the songs. His genius was insane and actually sent him in that direction. He could write the music for a 20-piece orchestra as their background and still fuss over changing a note on something as simple as a tambourine.

After hearing voices -- supposedly brought on by his father continuing to slap him on the side of his head, Brian turned to drugs. He gets married, divorced and ends up in one manic situation after another. Dano seems born to play this character. He has the ability to create a unique weirdness in faulty characters. As Paul Sunday in There Will Be Blood, Dano stood tall against every actor, even the terrific Daniel Day-Lewis. But I also enjoyed him behind the mic and belting out the high notes of Brian’s part in the songs.

Speaking about that, Dano -- who performs a few portions of Wilson compositions on piano -- said, “There are a few scenes where you hear me start a line of a song and by the end of the session, you’re hearing Brian's vocals. I have to give credit to the sound people, the transitions are really smooth; you can't tell that one half of it is the real thing and one half is me faking it, so I thank those guys a lot.”

The parallel narrative covering two specific time periods of Wilson's life -- the 1960s and the 1980s -- is also superbly played by Cusack. He meets Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks) when he goes to buy a Cadillac. She’s intrigued by this man with no clue who he is, but she's  also curious about the 3-man entourage that accompanies him.

Brian begins to pursue Melinda -- even though Eugene Landry (Paul Giametti), his official guardian and also his therapist, doesn’t want Brian to get involved with her. Melinda attends a family barbecue where Landry practically assaults Brian because he’s hungry and wants to eat a burger. Things get worse from there on, and Melinda realizes Landry is conniving and bad for Brian’s recovery. Banks is great as Melinda.

Early on at a dinner, Brian asked Melinda why she didn’t have a boyfriend. She replies, “He broke my heart.” Brian says he shouldn’t have done that. She replies, “I shouldn’t have let him.” It’s part of that lesson, along with genuinely caring for Brian, that makes her take dangerous steps to right wrongs and save him.

I can’t remember a movie that I didn’t like Giamatti in, but I sure didn’t like his character in this film. My first look at him made me laugh! His hairdo looks like something a clown would wear. But Giamatti creates a genuine distrustful man who -- if not for Melinda -- could have caused the end of Brian’s life.

Bill Camp gives us chills as the boy’s father, a man more a deterrent in their lives than a mentor. Kenny Wormald as Dennis, Jake Abel as cousin Mike Love, Brett Davern as Carl Wilson and Graham Rogers as friend Al Jardine fill in the band very well.

Anyone who enjoys songs of the Beach Boys and wants answers to situations involving the group that many fans have pondered over for years should not miss this movie. Director Bill Pohlad has created a masterpiece here. Some viewers, like me, will probably want to see it more than once.  

(Released by Roadside Attractions and rated “PG-13" for thematic elements, drug content and language.)

Review also posted at www.reviewexpress.com.