Dilemma: What do you do when one of your favourite performers is starring in a film about a subject you don't like? Do you shell out the money to go see it in the theatres? Nope you wait for it to come out on DVD and your wife to bring it home to watch one night.
I've never liked the music of Bobby Darin; I found it insipid and tiresome. Anybody who could turn a song like "Mack The Knife" into a cocktail lounge hit deserves to be run out of town on a rail and tarred and feathered as far as I was concerned. Bobby Darin was just another Pat Boone "whiting" up radical music for the mainstream.
But Beyond The Sea was written, directed and starred in by
Although Spacey obviously was a huge fan of Darin's it hasn't interfered with a warts and all production. He does nothing to gloss over Darin's obvious ego and self-centred behaviour. He neglects his wife, Sandra Dee (Kate Bosworth) and son in his relentless drive to perform and be a star. The world revolves around him and everyone else are simply satellites who are lucky enough to orbit around him. Instead of this being just a straight bio-picture Spacey has created a surrealistic movie within a movie that dodges in and out of reality. With Darin's younger self from both the movie that Darin is making about his life and the actor playing the young Bobby Darin in Spacey's movie acting as go between, we re-visit Darin's past.
Article comments
1 - Victor Lana
Just a wonderful review, Gypsy, of quite a fine movie. I too didn't think I'd like it either(Bobby D. was my parents' cup of tea), but the story was excellent and Spacey is dynamite. I also liked the flashbacks because they grounded the viewer and made us understand Bobby's motives (even when they seemed strange).
I have to say that this movie got passed over because of (I believe) the impact of "Ray" which was a critical and commercial success. Too bad. This is a stronger film.
2 - George Dionne
Good review.
I liked the movie, but thought the flashback/flashforward thing they had going on with the young boy was a little confusing. I also think the story was too soft and favorable toward Darrin.