The Beach Boys is a streaming documentary devoted to the popular music group.
The Disney+ film, co-directed by music-documentary stalwarts Frank Marshall and Thom Zimny, focuses on the first decade and a half, in the 1960s and 1970s.
It depicts the career of the rock band that is considered America’s greatest all-time group.
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.
The skill with which Marshall and Zimny hit the key points in a two-hour documentary is impressive.
