The Beach Boys: An American Family is a 2000 television film written by Kirk Ellis and directed by
Jeff Bleckner. It is a
dramatization of the early years of
The Beach Boys, from their formation in the early 1960s to their peak of popularity as musical innovators, through their late-60s decline (and
Brian Wilson's beginning battle with mental illness), to their re-emergence in 1974 as a
nostalgia and "goodtime" act.