Review of Beyond the Sea (2004) by Josh D — 15 Apr 2007

"Beyond the Sea" is an excellent musical, much of the time. It's an impressionistic biography some of the time. And, it's a decent film most of the time.

I was surprised to see that Spacey could pull off the singing and dancing. Didn't know he had it in him. Kevin's not as good a Bobby was; but that's okay, hardly anybody but Sammie Davis Jr. could hold a flame to Darin. Okay, Sammie was better than Bobby much of the time. So, Spacey did Bobby proud with his singing. But like all these cinematic biopics (e.g. "Walk the Line", "Bird", "Hoffa" and especially, "The Life and death of Peter Sellers"), "Beyond the Sea" falls short of telling it like it was and many times, portrays it like it wasn't. It didn't help matters that Spacey had to direct himself and others in the film while doing almost everything else but hold the cameras. It was just too much for anyone. For instance, in his directing persona, he missed the fact that his kid-Bobby was stiff. He didn't push Hoskins enough, so he appeared cold much of the time, which was probably a physical reality, in that the film was shot in seven degree temperatures in Berlin. His Sandra Dee played largely cardboard copy; but that could have been generated by the fact that the filmic Sandra and Spacey's Bobby had very little on-screen chemistry between them.

However, the singing and dancing were great and I, for one, am very happy that Kevin Spacey put his artistic ass on the line to do this picture. It's well worth seeing and hearing. The way Kevin was made up to look like Bobby is quite eerie at times--very well done. And if you take the film as a work of art as opposed to a very accurate documentary, you'll be in the right frame of mind to see it.

"Beyond the Sea" raises more questions than it answers in terms of Darin's real life and that may be what Spacey had in mind when he consented to making a rather impressionistic portrait of Bobby.

From whom or where did Bobby learn so much about the blues? It certainly wasn't only by way of his mother/grandmother as portrayed in the film.

Was his connection to the blues the reason for his liberal attachment to the civil rights movement and to the Kennedy brand of leadership?

Where did he get the idea to do his great version of Brecht's and Weil's "Mack the Knife"?

Did he know about the "Three Penny Opera" and the anti-fascist politics of the creators of same?

How did his confusion about the Vietnam War devolve into the kind of conspiracy politics which the film hints at?