New documentary tells Brian Wilson’s survival story

Fine said that “I wanted to show people Brian’s humanity, his decency, his kindness, his humor, his curiosity.”

In the film, Fine stops the car outside of the former home of Wilson’s brother Carl, who died of lung cancer at 51 in 1998. Fine gets out; Wilson wants to stay in the passenger seat. The camera catches Wilson wiping away a tear.

At another point, as they passed a spot where he once owned a health food store, Wilson says that “I haven’t had a friend to talk to in three years.”

They are moments that are deeply discomforting, bordering on exploitive. Wilson is clearly a damaged soul and, for his sake, you wonder at times in “Long Promised Road” if he would have been been better served by the dignity of privacy.

Fine doesn’t see it that way.

“All of it is done on Brian’s terms and on Brian’s comfort level, so I don’t see it as exploitive,” he said.

Wilson himself, in a Zoom call with reporters, said little. Asked why he agreed to participate in the film, he said, “I don’t know. I just made up my mind.”

Fine said it appears that the level of fandom that Wilson inspires is sometimes intimidating. He was struck once, following a show where Wilson and his band performed the “Pet Sounds” album, when Wilson told him that he’d always doubted it, but that now he thought that people loved his music and that he was doing what he was supposed to be doing.