A crooner in the Sinatra school, Bobby Darin had ego and ambition enough to overcome his pudgy, square looks, and even garnered an Oscar nomination in his brief acting career (for 1963’s Captain Newman MD). He seems to have married Sandra Dee (Kate Bosworth) to prove, simply, that he could. Can’t imagine what star-director Kevin Spacey relates to here.
There are some heavy-hitters among the screenwriters?Paul Homicide Attanasio; Lorenzo Sleepers Carcaterra; James Bugsy Toback?and Beyond The Sea isn’t stupid, but it never makes a compelling case that Darin merits two hours of our rapt attention.
The movie delivers the greatest hits alongside domestic trials and tribulations, with a few fantasy sequenes thrown in, but Spacey’s direction is self-conscious, and no movie which shoves John Goodman, Bob Hoskins and Brenda Blethyn down our throats deserves much sympathy.