Beyond the Sea

What a curious film Beyond the Sea is. It's not very good, a cliche-ridden showbiz biopic, but underneath lurks something even weirder. Kevin Spacey wrote, directed and starred as the singer Bobby Darin, and it's clear that Spacey is enamored of his subject--too enamored, I think.

Bobby Darin is today a marginal figure in pop music history. He had a few hits that are remembered today, most notably "Mack the Knife" and the title song. Spacey, in an interview on the DVD, says that aside from Sammy Davis, Jr., Darin was the best nightclub performer of all time. That may be so, but that doesn't mean Darin warrants a film biography. To be sure there are some melodramatic elements to his story: he had rheumatic fever as a child, and was told he would be lucky to live past fifteen; his parentage was a complicated issue, and his marriage to actress Sandra Dee was occasionally rocky. But this doesn't add up to much, really. I'm not sure it would make a good episode of Behind the Music.

But Spacey's film treats Darin as if he were some huge star. I may be overstepping here, but I have to believe Spacey made this film so he could show off his musical talent. Spacey sings all the songs, and struts his stuff in some big dance numbers. These may be a thrill to those who are old enough to remember the Ed Sullivan Show, but to most this will seem woefully dated.

I kind of feel bad taking shots at this film, because it is obviously a labor of love. Spacey looks too old to play the part (Darin died at 36, but Spacey was about 45 when he made the picture), which makes the scenes in which he romances Sandra Dee (played by Kate Bosworth, 24 years younger than Spacey) unseemly. Some of the plot points seem absurdly amplified, such as Darin insisting that a black comic open for him at the Copacabana, and his turn toward anti-war folk songs in the late sixties. The whole thing reminded me of how Joe Piscopo used to do Frank Sinatra impersonations, and there was an uncomfortable feeling that he really thought he was Sinatra.