He sings! He dances! He produces, writes, and directs! Oscar winner Kevin Spacey nursed this baby for more than five years and created...a problem child. Beyond the Sea is a choppy film, in which the fantasy-reality combo sometimes works — like in an impromptu musical sequence about Bobby Darin's courtship of Sandra Dee (Kate Bosworth) — but at other times falls flat (like when he confronts his child-actor alter ego).
EXTRAS A basic making-of doc (prosthetic nose alert!) and a dry commentary track with Spacey and producer Andy Paterson explaining why they strayed from the standard biography style. In an effort to justify the fictional plot of Darin directing his own biopic, Spacey says he likes film-within-a-film biographies like 8 1/2 and All That Jazz. His pet project is a celebration of Darin, not a brutally honest portrait. Sure, we're all for artistic interpretation, but would some live concert footage of the real crooner be too much to ask for?
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