Kevin Spacey and Kate Bosworth star in the life story of Bobby Darin, a sixties teen idol who wanted to be the next Frank Sinatra.
--Randy
Beyond The Sea (2004)
Directors: Kevin Spacey
Producers: Jan Fantl, Arthur Friedman, Andy Patterson, And Kevin Spacey
Writers: Kevin Spacey And Lewis Corlick
Features: n/a
Characters:
Bobby Darin...Kevin Spacey
Sandra Dee...Kate Bosworth
Charlie Cassotto Maffia...Bob Hoskins
Polly Cossotto...Brenda Blethyn
Dick Behrke...Peter Cincotti
Mary Duvan...Greta Scacchi
Little Bobby...William Ullrich
Genre: Drama
Review:
By and large Bobby Darin suffered the same fate as Ray Charles due to almost the same circumstances. No, Darin was never blind, but he and Charles were myopic when it came to the big picture. Both artists followed like paths into almost obscurity. Each man had a definite agenda--to follow their dream, regardless of what was going on about them. Charles was actually blind so his 'blindness' can be understood. Not so for Darin. His dream was to be the next Frank Sinatra and play the legendary Copacabana Club. He was sighted, and did finally see his mistake career-wise, but it was too late. He was passed on by and became a footnote in rock 'n' roll history.
With the movie, "Beyond The Sea," Kevin Spacey wants to change all that. He and his late mother were Bobby Darin fans. Kevin Spacey has made it his personal crusade to make a movie about his hero. He has been trying for at least ten years and now his goal has been achieved. The life story of Bobby Darin has come to the screen, but it is writer and director Kevin Spacey's version which may not mesh with other people's versions. Spacey's Bobby Darin is the Frank Sinatra style Darin that was to be after the teen idol years. Missing is the young Bobby from which the foundation for the older Bobby would take form.
There are possibly many reasons for this. The length of the film, the feeling that Darin reached a real maturity later in life, or simply that in the ten years wait to get his film to the screen, Kevin Spacey had gotten too old to do a credible job as a teen idol. The latter is probably the best answer. Father Time waits for no man and actor Kevin Spacey had fallen to this curse. So what to do, since Spacey was dead set on portraying his hero? Just glide past the youthful years appears to be his solution.
"Beyond The Sea" starts out with a kind of "Mack The Knife" intro that is stopped short by a tuxedoed Bobby Darin(Kevin Spacey) yelling cut in a crowded nightclub. The camera pulls back to reveal this is all a movie set and that Darin is in the process of filming his own life story which he is never able to complete. Darin is not right with the scene, which appears to have been run through a couple of hundred times. He is not even happy with the film's beginning until a young lad playing the boy Darin causes the adult to think it over and decide the movie should begin on the streets where he grew up in New York City. The film fades to that era and the story begins.
You can tell Kevin Spacey tried to do what he thought was best to bring the Bobby Darin biography to the screen. He sings all the songs himself and does a stand out job. He is so good that it would be no aspersion to Bobby Darin if you were to get the CD soundtrack and be content with not going out to find a real Bobby Darin CD. Spacey is that good a singer.
What goes wrong with the movie is that it feels like an act of over indulgence on Spacey's part. First, instead of letting a younger actor handle what little time is set aside for the teen idol years, Kevin Spacey plays the role. He was undoubtedly fearful that the producers or powers that be might have suggested it would be easier to 'age' the younger actor than to 'give youth' to Spacey. The few moments that Spacey plays a youthful Bobby Darin do indeed look awkward.
Then there is the wig fixation. Bobby Darin's hair thinned at a young age and he had to use a wig. Kevin Spacey apparently wants to make this obvious to the public by wearing a bad wig when we first see this film's adult Bobby Darin. There is no need for this. Later in the film a great deal of time is spent on the subject, perhaps too much. It is not very believable that Darin would walk around in a bad wig with the amount of money he was raking in at this time in his life.
The choreography is a bit much. Occasionally the film will break out in dancing that will look like a Busby Berkeley number. Okay, not that lavish, but certainly the sequences are overdone and are questionable considering the movie's tone. There have long been rumors about Kevin Spacey's sexual persuasion and anyone watching this part of the film will no longer have any doubts about Spacey. What goes wrong is that now you have doubts about Darin--though I'm sure it is only an elaborate tribute by Spacey gone wrong. These dance routines distract and detract from the Bobby Darin story.
That imaginary/real kid played by William Ullrich distracts too. Initially he is a good trick to start off the film. Later as he continually pops up as an imaginary part of Darin's persona in the movie, this kid quickly gets annoying. He won't go away when he is no longer needed.
And now we get to Kate Bosworth as Sandra Dee, Darin's wife. Kate Bosworth as Sandra Dee is perfect. Sandra Dee was a popular young actress of the early sixties who came on as a younger Doris Day. She was a perennial virgin in the movies, young and very innocent looking. Kate Bosworth has that needed look of purity for the part.
There is a patch in the movie where Darin confronts the Vietnam War and politics. Darin feels the odd man out. Darin like many early rock 'n' roll performers had believed that this music was only a passing phase. He and others had tried to make career plans for it's eventual failure which never came. Darin has been so dedicated to his career, that when he takes a break due to personal problems, it all comes crashing down on him. Spacey contrasts the Vietnam era of the draft with the Iraq war of today. It is only a brief swat, but it is definitely there.
"Beyond The Sea," while certainly good intentioned, gets away from Kevin Spacey and wanders without setting a straight course. The movie goes over here, then over there, never quite getting it right. The audience is still not sure who Bobby Darin was at the end of the film.
I would give this movie two stars out of five.
----Randy