If Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial start of summer on most Americans’ calendars, then it makes sense that the real tentpole kicking off tent season for a lot of people is not “Furiosa” or “Garfield” but “The Beach Boys ,” a streaming documentary devoted to the least wintery group of all time. The Disney+ film, co-directed by music-doc stalwarts Frank Marshall and Thom Zimny, focuses on the first decade and a half or so of the band’s career, in the 1960s and ’70s. It starts with their unusual, pre-Beatles melding of complex Four Freshmen harmonies with surf music and themes; continues on through the ground-breaking work of the “Pet Sounds” era that led to a friendly rivalry with the Beatles; covers the complicated years when musical architect Brian Wilson physically and psychologically retreated, leaving the group to seek out new identities during the counterculture years; and finally, their comeback in the mid-’70s when the “Endless Summer” best-of created a fresh wave of Boys-band mania.
Should it be at least an hour longer? Undoubtedly, if you’re a fan. But in an era of everything in the culture feeling like an extended deluxe edition, there will also be much gratitude for the skill with which Marshall and Zimny hit the key points in a doc that, true to the SoCal-based subject at hand, can honestly and admiringly be characterized as “breezy.” It’s a very efficient safari.
Variety had a conversation with original members Mike Love a.