Beyond the Sea

MOVIE #1,595 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 04.30.24 PART OF THE INTERNET'S ONLY COMPREHENSIVE & RELENTLESSLY RESEARCHED KEVIN SPACEY DIRECTOR FOCUS PAGE Kevin Spacey is the rare case of someone who has actually been canceled and for good reason (link for anyone living under a rock). This film is already a tough sell for me, all that nastiness aside: I sometimes really struggle with the Hollywood biopic. The meta framing device here is daring, sure, but it's also a bit confounding/jarring: if there was ever a movie that didn't warrant any speck of high concept, you're looking at it folks. This aspect — Spacey, as Darin, is making a movie about his own life, and he interacts with the crew and other actors including the kid playing himself as a boy, before we're whisked away into traditional biopic hell via spontaneous flashback — is unnecessary. But it's, at least, an interesting choice.

They incorporate other equally fantastical elements into the central proceedings as well. The 2000s were a heyday of sorts for the Oscars-bait musician biopic (Ray and Walk the Line came out within nine months of this). Those are both better films but they don't experiment with the form for a single second. I actually liked the structure, look and flow of this way more than I expected. What I didn't and still don't like is Bobby Darin’s very very very boring music, which is, naturally, ever-present (it feels like there's another bland song every five minutes) albeit sung rather convincingly by Spacey himself (I feel like anyone with a half decent voice could ape this crooner style, though). So the main issue is that this backstory and bio aren't nearly engaging enough to make up for the fact that these tunes are total ass.

And then there's the electric chemistry between Spacey and Kate Bosworth (who plays Darin's wife, the actress Sandra Dee). Can you feel this electricity?...


Obviously, it's impossible to not view every Spacey on-screen interaction with a woman in a romantic scenario apart from what we know now (that he is attracted to extremely, if not criminally young men) but that is BAD regardless. I still think Kevin Spacey is a good actor in the right role. But I struggle to think of any performances where he's tasked to handle the leading (heterosexual) man part that works, in retrospect or otherwise. Don't get me started on the weird thing with the sword (I'll say no more — that's for the true Beyond the Sea-Heads). Ebert's thoughts on the matter are very different and very funny, however…

Kevin Spacey believes he was born to play Bobby Darin. I believe he was born to play more interesting characters... In his own best work, Spacey has achieved genius; he is better as an actor than Darin ever was as a singer [Souce]

Man, a good (read: bad) Ebert can take just brighten your day, can't it?

So, what do we make of Kevin Spacey, the director? First of all, who cares. Nobody should have an opinion on this. Secondly, he only made two films: one that's more or less a director-for-hire gig, and this, the very definition of a ‘passion project’. It's such a limited body of work that he couldn't possibly qualify as an auteur (although the ambitiousness of Beyond the Sea has me wondering, to a degree). The only thing I can say for sure is that he's world's better than George Clooney, the director. And let's leave it at that.

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Beyond the Sea is a 2004 American biographical musical drama film based on the life of singer-actor Bobby Darin. Starring in the lead role and using his own singing voice for the musical numbers, Kevin Spacey co-wrote, directed, and co-produced the film, which takes its title from Darin's song of the same title. It was released on December 17, 2004.