‘Beyond the Sea’ makes a big splash

“Beyond the Sea,” Kevin Spacey’s pet project on the life of singer Bobby Darin, has finally arrived in theaters, and what a splash it makes.

Spacey both directs and stars as Darin, a multi-talented performer whose star rose in the late 1950’s with hits like “Splish Splash,” and continued through the 1960’s with songs such as “Mack the Knife” and “Beyond the Sea.” In his short life (he died at age 37), Darin was a larger than life character, so it only makes sense to step away from the traditional format of biographical storytelling. Spacey does just that by imagining how Darin would have recalled his own life: as a lavish mid 20th century Hollywood musical.

Intermingled with performances on a sound stage fashioned as a nightclub, Darin’s celluloid memoir unfolds. Beginning life in Depression era Bronx, New York as Walden Robert Cassotto, Darin is a sickly child whose repeated bouts with rheumatic fever weaken his heart — so much so that doctors forecast his demise by the age of 15. Walden’s mother, Polly (Brenda Blethyn) keeps her young son’s spirits up by singing and dancing the tunes from her youth as a vaudeville performer.

Walden manages to outlive his death sentence and as his own talent for performing emerges, he’s compelled to make a name for himself as a world class singer. Now as Bobby Darin, the aspiring crooner enters the rock charts with “Splish Splash,” “Dream Lover” and others, pigeonholing him as a teen idol. Not one to be categorized, he follows up with an album of standards that reintroduce him as a serious performer on the level of his idol, Frank Sinatra. Darin meets and marries another teen idol, film star Sandra Dee, begins a film career and earns an Oscar nomination, headlines at the famed Copacabana club and becomes a staple performer on the Las Vegas Strip.

As in any good Hollywood musical, there’s always a hitch in the merriment. Darin’s personal life is complicated by his thirst for fame and his desire for credibility. He is also acutely aware that he is running on borrowed time, and after a series of devastating events he steps back from his professional life to contemplate just what it is he has accomplished. Then, tragically, as he rejuvenates his career, his childhood illness begins to take its toll.

The major complaint made about “Beyond the Sea” before its release has been that Spacey is “too old” to play Darin. That apprehension quickly evaporates in the opening sequences of the film, where Spacey’s interpretation of Darin is so fluid that age becomes irrevelant. The portrayal is made even more convincing in Spacey’s own singing voice and mannerisms, which are studied and deft. Rather than impersonating Darin, Spacey inhabits him.

Supporting this amazing performance is a breadth of talented actors. Kate Bosworth channels Sandra Dee as a radiant 16-year-old whose vibrance is slowly worn away over the course of the film from the pressures of her career and her over-reliance on alcohol. There is John Goodman as Darin’s manager, Steve Blauner and Bob Hoskins as his brother-in-law and confidante, Charlie Maffia. Caroline Aaron puts in an arresting performance as Darin’s wholly unlikable sister Nina, who eventually salvages a tattered relationship with Darin.

Just as in the classic film musicals, “Beyond the Sea” is designed as an entertainment, its revelations come more often from the power of its music than its dramatic moments. It’s also a mythology building piece that Darin himself would probably love.