Love & Mercy

Brian Past:
[pounding on recording console] We're *not* surfers, we *never* have been, and *real* surfers don't dig our music anyway!

Dennis Wilson:
[inhales cigarette] They don't.

Brian Future:
I want you to leave, but I don't want you to leave me.

Marilyn Wilson:
I'd like to make a toast. To "Good Vibrations", Brian's pocket symphony to God. And the biggest selling single the Beach Boys ever had. Ever!

Everyone:
Here, here!

Guest 1:
Brian, the suits at Capitol must be happy.

Guest 2:
Yeah, I guess you can tell the record company to screw themselves. I mean, you can do whatever you want, Brian. Right?

Guest 1:
Now what are you going to do with all that freedom?

Brian Past:
[to Marilyn] Did my dad call?

Marilyn Wilson:
No, he didn't. You want me to get him for you?

Guest 1:
Hey Van, what do you and Brian have cooking?

Van Dyke Parks:
[smiling] You know, just your basic American songbook neoclassical ditties. Your basic Copland, Gershwin, Hank Williams, a little bit of Irving Berlin and Kurt Weill, just a sprinkle of Beethoven and Beach Boys. Nothing too ambitious. Kind of a comedy album. Brian wants to call it Smile.

Melinda Ledbetter:
When did you first start hearing voices?

Brian Future:
1963

Brian Past:
We can't let them get ahead of us. [Referring to The Beatles]

Brian Past:
Okay, let's go again, please. Let's think of this feel a little harder. Okay? A little stronger. Let's really hit it now, okay? Here we go!

[the cello player plays a repetitive slew of notes]

Brian Past:
Okay, one more time, please! *Ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka*!

Mike Love:
They know the ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka! They're doing it! Brian, they've been doing it for the past three hours! Oh my God...

Brian Past:
Okay, Mike, you can leave if you don't want to be here, thank you, I'm working with the cello players. Okay, let's try it again, please. One more time. Take 32, here we go.

Brian Past:
[singing] God only knows what I'd be without you.

Carl Wilson:
Paul McCartney called "God Only Knows" the greatest song ever written.

Brian Past:
[On his new song "God Only Knows"] Tony and I think that if you close your eyes you can see a place or something that's happening. It's like being blind but because you're blind you can see more. Don't you think it's a spiritual kind of thing?

Murry Wilson:
I don't know what the hell you're talking about. I closed my eyes. Didn't see a thing. I don't know. Maybe it could be something. With the right arrangement.

Brian Past:
I have French horns on it and flutes, tambourines, sleigh bells, piano, bass. Real complex key shifts.

Murry Wilson:
Frankly, if you really want to know, I don't care for it. It's too wishy-washy. "If you leave me, why leave me? Life will go on. Why go on living?" It's not like a Beach Boys song. Your brothers are going to hate it.

Brian Past:
[devastated] It's a love song.

Murry Wilson:
It's a suicide note.

Brian Past:
[after a panic attack] I don't know. It was like - weird. Like I was in a movie or something. Like there were things there that I could see all of a sudden. Strange things. And people talking...

Carl Wilson:
[worried] You mean like voices? Voices in your head?

Brian Past:
No. [pauses sheepishly] Well, kind of! Yeah, I guess.

[Carl and Dennis exchange tense looks]

Brian Past:
Maybe - [imitating Sonny the Cuckoo Bird] I'm Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs! Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!

Brian Past:
[opening lines] Sometimes it scares me to think where it's coming from, you know? Like... There's someone else in there, not me. Well... What if I...

[lights a cigarette]

Brian Past:
What if I lose it and never get it back? What would I do then? Take a listen to this again, I wanna... do something with it. Um... I've got - I think I've got it. The music part, it worked out in my head, but... I don't know anything else except that it should... it should sound like, you know, a cry, but in sort of a good way or something. I want these voices at the end just to sound...

Brian Past:
[swimming in pool] I want to do a chanting album. Okay? No words. All Hawaiian thing. And we can turn it into a children's show for television - and it'll be completely unstructured - and it'll be about animals and eating right.

[sings]

Brian Past:
Mahalo lu le, mahalo lu la, keeni waka pula. Everyone! Mahalo lu le, mahalo lu la...

[a crescendo of sound and music plays over blackness]

Brian Wilson:
Alright, Chuck, Let's have it... We don't want to take 16... Here we go... I'm losing it, I'm losing the whole record... That'd be great... Something's not happenin'... Alright, here we go, "I'm Grass and You're a Power Mower"...

Carl Wilson:
I'm worried about you, brother.

Brian Past:
I think I might be losing it.

Dennis Wilson:
I don't blame you. There's a lot to lose out there.

Brian Future:
I'm not married anymore.

Melinda Ledbetter:
[Speaking in a near whisper] Okay.