I wanted to see this Kevin Spacey's work since I for the first time heard about Beyond the Sea but somehow the movie was released in my country only last month. I didn't know a thing about Bobby Darin and his music so his story and everything I saw in the movie was completely new for me. For this reason I can't say anything how fair it was to real life of Bobby Darin and all my comments are about the movie as a piece of art and Spacey's work both as director and actor.
To begin with I liked it, actually liked very much from beginning to the end. With his attempt of creating a very distinctive biographical picture of a complicated and strong man Kevin Spacey do his best and created an excellent motion picture, which works practically on every level. The movie skillfully and very often visually breathtaking shows Darin's life through his eyes and through the eyes of a young boy, who plays young Bobby. Bringing in a story throughout the movie young Bobby was a very clever move of a director and all the time his appearances are well-timed and interaction with other characters is excellent and exceptionally memorable. Kevin Spacey gave one of his best performances in his successful career and I'm very glad that it came on the movie he also directed. His artistic performance is so intimate and genuine that it was able to stroke my chord. He brought to life an image of a man who struggled in his attempts of reaching fame and how difficult fame and popularity could have been for a man. And the fact is that the strongest people suffer more from such a burden. At the same time the movie slightly touches some rather serious political issues but without turning into political discussion or controversy. Spasey's singing is impressive and it's very important that musical and song sequences are never overlong and they are perfectly implanted into the main story line. Beyond the Sea never looks like many other musical movies, story-story-dancing-song-story-song or something like that, you know what I mean. Music and songs are organic parts of the story and in for me it is one of the best achievements of a director and a lead performer. The last Bobby's (or Kevin's) song on stage is an incredibly strong and emontopnal moment. It touched me immensely and this time I prefer to take it as it was in the movie no matter is it a truth or a pure fantasy. The musical score and songs throughout the movie is one of the best I've seen in recent years and they are obviously worth recognition and listening by themselves.
But the success of Beyond The Sea is not a success of one man. All the main actors gave very good performances. It is really impossible not to mention here Kate Bostworth as Bobby's wife Sandra Dee, John Goodman as his manager, Carolyne Aaron, Bob Hoskins and a newcomer Wiiliam Ullrich who perfectly plays young Bobby. Skillful work of camera (operator's work by Eduardo Serra) was able to catch these performances along with director's ideas and recreate quite authentic atmosphere of different periods of American history and culture. Kevin Spacey's Beyond the Sea is a relatively rare event in world of formulaic and commercialized motion pictures and it's a bit of shame that it's not appreciated by many as it deserves.
10 out of 10
To begin with I liked it, actually liked very much from beginning to the end. With his attempt of creating a very distinctive biographical picture of a complicated and strong man Kevin Spacey do his best and created an excellent motion picture, which works practically on every level. The movie skillfully and very often visually breathtaking shows Darin's life through his eyes and through the eyes of a young boy, who plays young Bobby. Bringing in a story throughout the movie young Bobby was a very clever move of a director and all the time his appearances are well-timed and interaction with other characters is excellent and exceptionally memorable. Kevin Spacey gave one of his best performances in his successful career and I'm very glad that it came on the movie he also directed. His artistic performance is so intimate and genuine that it was able to stroke my chord. He brought to life an image of a man who struggled in his attempts of reaching fame and how difficult fame and popularity could have been for a man. And the fact is that the strongest people suffer more from such a burden. At the same time the movie slightly touches some rather serious political issues but without turning into political discussion or controversy. Spasey's singing is impressive and it's very important that musical and song sequences are never overlong and they are perfectly implanted into the main story line. Beyond the Sea never looks like many other musical movies, story-story-dancing-song-story-song or something like that, you know what I mean. Music and songs are organic parts of the story and in for me it is one of the best achievements of a director and a lead performer. The last Bobby's (or Kevin's) song on stage is an incredibly strong and emontopnal moment. It touched me immensely and this time I prefer to take it as it was in the movie no matter is it a truth or a pure fantasy. The musical score and songs throughout the movie is one of the best I've seen in recent years and they are obviously worth recognition and listening by themselves.
But the success of Beyond The Sea is not a success of one man. All the main actors gave very good performances. It is really impossible not to mention here Kate Bostworth as Bobby's wife Sandra Dee, John Goodman as his manager, Carolyne Aaron, Bob Hoskins and a newcomer Wiiliam Ullrich who perfectly plays young Bobby. Skillful work of camera (operator's work by Eduardo Serra) was able to catch these performances along with director's ideas and recreate quite authentic atmosphere of different periods of American history and culture. Kevin Spacey's Beyond the Sea is a relatively rare event in world of formulaic and commercialized motion pictures and it's a bit of shame that it's not appreciated by many as it deserves.
10 out of 10