Good vibrations for Brian Wilson two-era biopic

Bill Pohlad makes the decision to return to directing movies after 25 years sound so simple: “(Screenwriter) Oren Moverman said at one point, ‘You should direct this.’ And I said, ‘OK.’”

It wasn’t quite that easy to get “Love & Mercy” into theaters, even if the resulting film feels so lucid it’s almost effortless.

Taking an unusual approach to the life of Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson, “Love & Mercy” has been on Pohlad’s plate for about five years. That’s when he was shown an early version of the script, with the idea that he might produce it.

The film will open today at the State Theatre in downtown Modesto. Wilson played a concert in 2014 at the Gallo Center for the Arts.

Pohlad wasn’t a fan of the screenplay but he was intrigued by Wilson, who became a huge star in his 20s, suffered a breakdown around the time of the release of the legendary album “Pet Sounds,” and didn’t recover for decades.

Pohlad’s first feature was the little-known “Old Explorers” in 1990. He followed up with commercials and then shifted from directing to producing, including collaborations with some of today’s most acclaimed directors: Ang Lee (“Brokeback Mountain”), Steve McQueen (“12 Years a Slave”), Robert Altman (“A Prairie Home Companion”) and Terrence Malick (“Tree of Life”).

“I definitely sucked up stuff from all of them. But I wasn’t taking notes or anything. You store it all away, mix it up with other things and it all comes out as you,” Pohlad said. “I would always give my notes to those directors – not that they would always use them – and sometimes I’d wonder why they didn’t. Now, after ‘Love & Mercy,’ it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s probably why. That’s how it feels to have somebody come up to you with a note.’”

For “Love & Mercy,” Pohlad said, “I knew I didn’t want to make a biopic, so I was figuring out how to put together a movie that was a portrait of Brian.”

He began thinking of Wilson’s life as divided into before and after “Pet Sounds” and cast two disparate actors, Paul Dano and John Cusack, to play Wilson in those phases.

“For Paul, it was all about channeling the music. He took voice lessons and he started playing the piano a lot and listening to tapes of Brian in the studio. He didn’t meet Brian until we started shooting the film, but John met him and spent some time with him because he wanted to get a real sense of Brian,” Pohlad said.

At 59, Pohlad is the right age to have grown up listening to the Beach Boys’ good vibrations, so it makes sense that he was a fan.

“Except that I wasn’t,” Pohlad said. “I was a Beatles guy. I remember my brother liking them, and hearing them on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show,’ ” but Pohlad didn’t spark to the surfin’ sounds of the band until about 15 years ago.

In addition to the music, Pohlad was intrigued by the idea of a person re-inventing himself later in life – he acknowledges that theme rings true to someone plunking himself down in the director’s chair for the first time in 25 years – as well as the opportunity to explore recovery from mental illness.

“We see people on the street all the time who we think are behaving strangely,” Pohlad said. “They’re not all Brian Wilson (who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia) but they all have a story. These kinds of things happen all the time to the people we know, so I’d love to get that message out in the universe more.”

Pohlad’s drive is evident in the time he spent making sure in his preparation and in the perseverance it took to get his “Love & Mercy” vision on-screen. But he also comes off as quiet and unassuming in person, especially when he answers a question about whether, now that he has returned to his “dream job,” he plans to direct again.

“Yes, definitely,” said Pohlad. “If they’ll let me.”

This story was originally published June 17, 2015 at 4:35 PM with the headline "Good vibrations for Brian Wilson two-era biopic."