In 2012, I watched as the remaining members of the Beach Boys played together for their 50th anniversary. As they launched into When I Grow Up (to be a Man) , I reflected on the experience of listening to elderly men sing about what they’ll be when they “grow up”, in a band whose name never allows them to grow old. This contrast captured the essence of the Beach Boys’ story – one of both joy and sadness, of hits and misses, and of friendship and family.
The new Disney+ documentary, The Beach Boys, is a two-hour journey through the band’s musical history, from the early days as teens playing music in the Wilsons’ garage up to the mid-1970s. But while there are some touching moments, overall it felt like a missed opportunity to tell the band’s story in a new way and from a more modern perspective. The past few years have seen a number of box sets and re-releases of the Beach Boys’ music, as well as the publication of the band’s first official biography earlier this year.
The new documentary feels like part of this wider effort to document the band’s legacy while the surviving members are still able to participate. This version of the Beach Boys’ history is mostly sunny, celebrating the band’s successes, its journey to relevance – then irrelevance – and relevance again. However, it brushes over some of the more complex and difficult stories.
Perhaps this is partly why the documentary unexpectedly stops in the mid-1970s, ending on the redemption of t.
