While it's enjoyable enough, and fun to watch for any Beach Boys fan, the movie's liberties at dramatization takes the general outline of the band's personal and professional lives way too literally.
I understand it's a TV movie and they had to condense events to fit its running time, but it makes no attempt at subtlety. This quality of the movie is often distracting. Every turn in the plot is foreshadowed with the grace of a rock through a window.
I don't disagree, but, like you said, it was a TV movie... and an old school TV movie at that (in other words, it was not made for HBO or another cable outlet with a big budget and directive to make it "art" that the critics will love). Their intent was to reach the widest possible audience and tell the story of the Beach Boys. With those limitations, I think this was actually a fairly decent movie.
shareI agree with its 'broad strokes' depiction of events - on top of which, some liberties seem to have been taken to hammer home a point. I'm thinking about drug use here; it's made to look like Brian was introduced to LSD in 1966 sometime after the 'Pet Sounds' sessions, leading to his falling apart, where I'd heard David Leaf recounting how he had shared some with Brian, who initially did freak out and shut himself up in his room for an hour, then strode out and started working on the piano on what would eventually become...California Girls. In 1964.
I don't endorse things I've never used, and would never confuse drug use with creativity, but showing that happening would imply the music he'd written and produced afterward, arguably his most brilliant stuff, was enhanced by (or at least not impeded by) LSD.
TV production companies do seem required to make any drug use depicted as a cautionary tale, but they could have used his LSD use as a reason for his breakdown and refusal to keep touring, but they seemed to save that for his foray into marijuana use, saving LSD for the inevitable 'it gets worse' sequencing.
Again, not endorsing, and I certainly don't want to twist the events of another man's life to fit my own perspective...I'm just glad to see Brian as the busy guy he is today.
The acid didn't help Brian psychology. Likely pushed him over the edge.
shareIt was like a box ticking exercise. Shorehorning things in that the audience needed to know with toe-curlingly unrealistic and improbable dialogue. The kind of thing they use when they have a comedic cameo of a famous personality in a film that's otherwise unconnected with them. Except not as good.
It also felt like it was made up in about two days and each scene give two takes to get it in the can. The only parts that felt compellingly authentic were between Murry and Audrey on their own.