I liked the "Love and Mercy" movie very much. I appreciated that they didn't do what other music movies do and put everyone in a bad wig. But they could have at least got the color right. Landy's real hair is very dark and Brian's real hair is much lighter. But in the movie, they were the exact opposite. John Cusak did an excellent Brian impersonation with his posture. The scene where he first asks his wife out on date, and he's standing there with his neck jutted forward, like a turtle is soooo Brian. And at the end, he's walking around with his hands oddly facing backwards - that's Brian too.
I agree that they skipped a lot of the story in the middle and if I hadn't already known who Landy was and the whole history, I probably would have been confused. I think a big part of that is that - like the bad wigs - they didn't want to put anyone in a fat suit. Fat suits never look real - the face always ends up looking like Weird Al in the "Fat" video. So, they just kind of had to skip over all the years with Brian being really fat and that's when Landy was first brought in. Did you know that at one point they fired him because he was so expensive, but then Brian got fat again, so they brought that sicko back?? Geez, why didn't they just send him to some Weightwatchers meetings?
Anyway, they seemed to really play up the notion of his wife being a major whistle-blower in the whole thing, to the point of making it seem like the rest of the family didn't care about Brian at all and really neglected him. I was struck by the scene of her on her balcony making all those phone calls to his mother and brothers, pleading with them, and it seemed to accentuate the notion that the family did nothing to help him. I wonder if it really played out like that or if there's more to the story. If I was in that family (most of whom are dead now anyway) and I saw the movie, I think I'd be pretty pissed off.
