The John Cusack Drama Hidden Gem You Can Stream On Hulu
John Cusack has done a lot in his multi-decade career in Hollywood — even some films he regrets. From a series of appearances in crowd-pleasing teen comedies like "The Sure Thing," "Better off Dead...," "Hot Pursuit," and "Say Anything" to more mature roles such as his parts in "High Fidelity," "Grosse Pointe Blank," "Being John Malkovich," "America's Sweethearts," and "Eight Men Out," he became a legend at a young age and is an actor with an impressive résumé that would make any actor in Hollywood proud.
There's one hidden gem in particular among his roles. It's a quiet biographical film that received some light awards buzz when it was released but has gone unheralded in the years since. Let us at Looper change that right now by putting a spotlight on this unsung film, which you can stream if you have a Hulu subscription. Want to know what it is? Keep reading to find out.
Let Love & Mercy give you some good vibrations
"Love & Mercy" is a 2014 biopic about Beach Boys legend and songwriting maven Brian Wilson. Wilson is an extraordinary musician who instantly became a rock legend when he hit the '60s scene with his bandmates, but he struggled with mental illness and withdrew from the musical scene for a time to a life of seclusion. The biopic — approved by the singer, who included an original tune on the soundtrack ("One Kind of Love") — tackles both the highs and lows of his life, splitting the narrative between the 1960s and the 1980s.
While Paul Dano played the young version of Wilson in the 1960s segments, Cusack plays Wilson in the 1980s, when he was under the legal guardianship of his therapist, Dr. Eugene Landy (played by Paul Giamatti in the film). Heavily medicated, he meets and sparks a romance with Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks in the movie), a car saleswoman. She eventually becomes alarmed by Landy and Wilson's relationship and the couple breaks up, but she gives his family evidence that Landy had been made a beneficiary of Wilson's will before leaving his orbit. This results in a restraining order barring Landy from seeing Wilson, Wilson taking on a more conventional course of therapy and reemerging as a performing artist, and Ledbetter and Wilson reuniting and eventually marrying.
Cusack's quiet but powerful performance certainly makes it worth streaming on Hulu if you have a subscription.