Behind the Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations

A handsomely produced but only marginally satisfying epic, the four-hour mini series “The Beach Boys: An American Family” is a brave attempt at re-creating one of the most bittersweet sagas in the annals of American music.

At the center of the Beach Boys lies the story of Brian Wilson, a genial songwriter who lost himself in an obsessive search for the ultimate pop masterpiece.

Besides showcasing remarkable attention to period detail, the production benefits tremendously from the performances by Frederick Weller and Kevin Dunn as, respectively, Wilson and his father, portrayed here as manipulative and hateful. But in an attempt to tell the group’s winding story as succinctly as possible, many of the scenes become too wooden and staged to qualify as good drama.

In the early ‘60s, the Beach Boys used California’s surfing counterculture as its emblem, while never entirely identifying with it. “I don’t know anything about surfing,” exclaims an angry Wilson during one of the show’s most revealing moments. “I hate the beach.”

Still, the sunny beaches and California girls were the commercial motifs on which the band cemented its popularity. Once the boys became powerful enough to call their own shots, Wilson gave free reign to his relentless desire for creative independence. Inspired by the “Wall of Sound” production techniques of Phil Spector, he strove to create a new, symphonic pop sound, often reaching amazing heights, but still failing when comparing himself to the Beatles, who at the time were peaking on both sides of the Atlantic.

Fueled by his competitive spirit and a never-ending inferiority complex, Wilson recorded the masterful “Pet Sounds” in 1966, then attempted to follow it with the aborted “Smile” project that reportedly would have been his artistic pinnacle. But his self-mutilating perfectionism got in the way.

The series’ most gripping scenes, like Wilson’s sudden panic attack aboard an airplane, are the ones that deal with his progressive breakdown, the collapsing of his fragile ego under the insurmountable pressure of the music business and its ferocious thirst for hit singles.

These glimpses into the inner workings of Wilson’s fragile persona manage to explain the extraordinary amount of longing that lies hidden underneath his gorgeous pop songs. What this flawed miniseries surely accomplishes is to leave the viewer with the desire to delve further into the musical legacy of Wilson and his extraordinary band.

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* “The Beach Boys: An American Family” will be shown in two parts, on Sunday and Monday at 9 p.m. on ABC. The network has rated the movie TV-14 (may be inappropriate for children under 14).