Love & Mercy (12A) 

The main cinema release this week is the stunning Love & Mercy, the story of Beach Boys genius Brian Wilson at two different periods in his life – in the 1960s when he decided to stop touring with the group and concentrate on writing and developing their revolutionary Pet Sounds and Smile albums in the studio, and twenty years later – after a nervous
breakdown – when he was in the care of a tyrannical therapist called Eugene Landy. 

As directed by producer Bill Pohlad, Love & Mercy is built on a constantly crossing and interacting series of narrative parallels, ranging from its overall structure in two timelines to the bad-father figures that dominated and blighted Wilson’s life and the incisive debate between the composer and his cousin, Mike Love, about their ambitions for their music.

The decision to cast two different actors – Paul Dano and John Cusack – as Wilson was a risk, especially since one looks substantially more like the singer/composer than the other but it generally works. The growth in the character, the setbacks in his life are credibly, realistically done, incorporating his vulnerability and innate sensitivity into his personality as an artist. 

In one of the movie's most rapturous sequences, Wilson gathers a group of studio musicians – players who will later come to be known as the Wrecking Crew – to turn the sounds in his head into a reality. They ask questions about unlikely countermelodies; they make little mistakes that Wilson, delightedly, incorporates into the record that will eventually become Pet Sounds. Under his guidance, these musicians become friends and allies; they warm to his touch. He's painting sounds with people. And perhaps that's how a record that might have become over-orchestrated to the point of artificiality instead sounds wholly, believably human. 

I have to say I can’t wait to see Love & Mercy again.

Ted 2 (16) 

Ted 2 is a follow-up to the 2012 Seth MacFarlane comedy about the foul-mouthed teddy bear and the young man whose childhood wish brought him to life. In the follow-up, Ted marries and wants to have children, which focuses attention on his “human rights” – is he a property or a human being , the courts are called upon to decide.

The most likeable aspect of Ted 2 is the game performance of Amanda Seyfried as the rookie lawyer who takes on the court case and carries the interplay with the two main characters as they tease and insult her – Ted calls her Gollum on several occasions. And while we knew from Mamma Mia she could sing , she does a gorgeously, soulful rendition of a Macfarlane song called Mean Old Moon halfway through the picture.

Song of the Sea (PG)

Song of the Sea, the second Oscar-nominated feature by Kilkenny animator and Cartoon Saloon founder, Tomm Moore is also out this weekend.

It is a story that focuses on the myth of the selkie and its place in the life of a lonely lighthouse keeper and his two children which, in terms of its visual accomplishment, is an advance on Moore’s first film, The Secret of Kells. 

This is an animated masterwork that uses vivid, subtly realised hand-drawn backdrops to provide a rich and varied context for the action and integrates fairies, elves, and sea-gods into the lives of the fascinating human characters.

Moore was surprised that The Secret of Kells didn’t do better at the box office in this country than it did elsewhere. Song of the Sea, which has attracted rapturous support in the United States in particular, is even more deserving of backing – it is a classic, functioning illustration of the magic of the movies.

Touch of Evil (Club)

Touch of Evil, Orson Welles’ glorious film noir from 1957, is being shown in a BFI re-issue at the Irish Film Institute from Friday. The masterpiece, which was written for the screen and directed by Welles who also played the grossly corrupt cop Hank Quinlan, was delivered in a rough cut to Welles’ employers Universal International in December 1957.

He had gone to Mexico to raise money for a film version of Don Quixote and when he returned he found they had re-shot and reedited it, claiming it was too difficult to follow. After a single viewing, he wrote a 58-page memo to the head of the studio, Edward Muhl, pleading with him to restore the picture.

But it wasn’t restored at the time – in fact it wasn’t restored until 1998 when it was re-constructed by the great editor of Apocalpyse Now, Walter Murch, who implemented the changes sought by Welles in the memo.

This version was overseen by Welles film scholar and consultant Jonathan Rosenbaum and we’ll have him on The Picture Show at 7pm on Saturday.