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.
Beyond the Sea depicts Darin's rise to success in both the music and film industry during the 1950s and 1960s as well as his marriage to Sandra Dee, portrayed by Kate Bosworth.
As early as 1986, Barry Levinson intended to direct a film based on the life of Darin, and he began pre-production on the project in early 1997. When he eventually vacated the director's position, Spacey, along with Darin's son Dodd, acquired the film rights.
Filming for Beyond the Sea took place from November 2003 to January 2004. It was released by Lions Gate Films on December 17, 2004 to mixed reviews from critics and bombed at the box office. Dodd Darin, Sandra Dee and former Darin manager Steve Blauner responded with enthusiastic feedback to Spacey's work on the film. Despite a number of negative reviews, some critics praised Spacey's performance, largely because of his decision to use his own singing voice. He received a Golden Globe nomination.
Plot
Rather than providing a straightforward biography, the film weaves fantasy sequences with scenes containing somewhat fictionalized accounts of events in Darin's life, and throughout it, the adult singer interacts with his younger self. It chronicles his determination to rise from his working-class roots as Walden Robert Cassotto, a frail boy from The Bronx plagued by multiple bouts of rheumatic fever, who becomes a singer more famous than Frank Sinatra. To achieve that goal, he forms a band and struggles to find gigs at any nightclub that will hire him.
His agent gets Darin a recording contract with Atlantic Records, where the singer enjoys teen idol success with "Splish Splash". Not wanting to limit his appeal to rock and roll audiences, he changes his niche to big band singing and recording major hits, such as "Mack the Knife". To capitalize on his popularity with teenage and young adult audiences, Darin is cast in Come September opposite Sandra Dee. He falls in love with the 18-year-old actress; determined to marry her, he romantically seduces and enchants her with songs like "Beyond the Sea" and "Dream Lover". They elope, angering her mother. Darin finally realizes his own mother's dream when he is signed to appear at the famed Copacabana nightclub in Manhattan.
As success takes him on the road and away from home, Dee begins to drink heavily, and the couple fights frequently. Eventually, they separate and later reconcile. She gives birth to a son, Dodd. To his actress wife's chagrin, Darin is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as a shell shocked soldier in Captain Newman, M.D.
In the late 1960s, Darin becomes involved in the campaign to elect Robert F. Kennedy for President and contemplates a political career of his own. His sister Nina, knowing his past will be investigated closely if Bobby opts to enter the political arena, shocks him with the news his beloved mother actually was his grandmother and that he is Nina's illegitimate child, the son of a father she cannot identify.
Devastated, Darin becomes a recluse living in a trailer on the Big Sur coast in California. He finds himself out of step with changing music trends, and when he tries to adapt by incorporating folk music and protest songs into his repertoire, he finds himself rejected by the audience that once embraced him. Undaunted, he stages a show, complete with a gospel choir, at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, and against all odds, it is a huge success.
However, his triumph is short-lived. Suffering from blood poisoning following surgery to repair his mechanical heart valve, Darin is rushed to the hospital, where he dies at the age of 37. Following his death, he meets the younger counterpart of himself once again, and the two duet with "As Long as I'm Singing".
Cast
- Kevin Spacey as Bobby Darin, who rises from his lower-class roots to become one of the most popular rock and roll and big band performers of all time.
- William Ullrich as Young Bobby.
- Kate Bosworth as Sandra Dee, the popular actress who marries Bobby. Although they divorced in 1967, Sandra said she always truly and deeply loved him and that she always would do so and thus never remarried.
- Bob Hoskins as Charlie Maffia, who serves as a father figure and considers Bobby to be his son.
- John Goodman as Stephen Blauner, Bobby's dedicated talent manager. Blauner later becomes a successful film producer with movies such as The King of Marvin Gardens (1972) and Drive, He Said (1971).
- Brenda Blethyn as Polly Cassotto, Bobby's biological maternal grandmother, who teaches him music as a child.
- Caroline Aaron as Nina Cassotto Maffia, Bobby's biological mother, whom he believed to be his older sister until she tells him the truth when he is 33.
- Greta Scacchi as Mary Douvan, Sandra's overprotective mother.
- Peter Cincotti as Dick Behrke, Bobby's arranger and pianist.
- Matt Rippy as David Gershenson, Bobby's publicist.
Cathy Moriarty-Gentile and Vanessa Redgrave were originally cast in Beyond the Sea, but both actresses dropped out for unspecified reasons.
Development
Barry Levinson
Beginning in 1986, Barry Levinson intended to produce and direct a biopic based on the life of Darin with funding from his own production company, Baltimore Pictures. With writer Lewis Colick, Levinson pitched the idea to Warner Bros. Pictures, who agreed to co-finance The Bobby Darin Story and cover distribution duties. Producer Arthur Friedman, a fan of Darin's work, began to laboriously negotiate for crucial music licensing rights with Darin's ex-wife, Sandra Dee; his son, Dodd; and former manager Steve Blauner. Colick wrote the first draft in 1987 before Warner Bros. and Levinson commissioned rewrites from Paul Attanasio and Paul Schrader. concentrated on Sandra Dee's alcoholism and childhood molestation by her stepfather. Tom Cruise was reportedly under consideration to portray Darin.
Meanwhile, in May 1994, Warner Bros. optioned Dodd Darin's book, Dream Lovers (). James Toback and Lorenzo Carcaterra were hired to rewrite Attanasio's The Bobby Darin Story, which they retitled Dreamer in an attempt to incorporate the information present in Dodd Darin's Dream Lovers. but the filmmakers believed the actor was too old. Around then, Spacey coincidentally performed the cover version of Darin's "That Old Black Magic" for the soundtrack of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The actor explained that after 1994, "at least three times a year, my manager would call over to Warner Bros. and say, 'Hey, what's happening with that Bobby Darin movie? You guys ever going to make it?'" Bette Midler as Darin's birth mother Nina and Bruno Kirby as Nina's husband/Darin's right-hand man, Charlie Mafia. Levinson eventually vacated the director's position in favor of Liberty Heights (1999); because he was unable to get Dreamer into production, Warner Bros. lost the music licensing rights, which reverted to the Darin estate. with collaboration from producer Arthur Friedman, who had been developing both The Bobby Darin Story and Dreamer with Levinson at Warner Bros. since 1986. Shortly afterwards, Spacey was in discussions with Dodd Darin to star in the lead role. Spacey was able to acquire the film rights from Warner Bros. in early 2000. from Darin collaborator Roger Kellaway to give an accurate portrayal of the singer.
By making the biopic, Dodd Darin and Spacey acknowledged the similar career experiences between Darin and Spacey. "A lot of people doubted my dad's abilities, and Kevin's had doubters and naysayers," Dodd commented. "But both [men] were willing to take risks, and both were very resilient. My dad would always try new things. You could never pin him down. Kevin's career is similar." In August, with principal photography to begin in just weeks, MGM dropped out as distributor and main financier over scheduling conflicts. Lions Gate Entertainment quickly picked up the distribution duties, and Spacey found enough investors from England and Germany to continue moving forward on production.
In addition, Spacey declined to be paid for his work as actor, director, co-writer, and producer on Beyond the Sea. A portion of the $25 million budget came from his own Trigger Street Productions. Producer Arthur Friedman, who had shepherded the biopic since 1987, commented that he and Spacey experienced creative differences during pre-production. Friedman remarked that he was not involved with Beyond the Sea once production began in Germany. South West England doubled for Darin's setting of reclusiveness in Big Sur, California. In an attempt to convincingly portray Darin, particularly during the early stages of the singer's life depicted in the film, Spacey hired prosthetic makeup designer Peter King from The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
Music
The soundtrack album features 18 tracks performed by Kevin Spacey.
Release
Marketing
To promote Beyond the Sea, Spacey and Phil Ramone devised a 12-city United States concert tour titled An Evening Celebrating the Music of Bobby Darin, which consisted of Spacey performing with a 19-piece band. Spacey's performance at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on December 11, 2004, received a standing ovation. Dodd Darin commented, "It was said about my dad that he had some big brass ones. To do a film about my dad is one thing, but it's another thing to go out and attempt to work a nightclub. Kevin's got a lot of courage. I think he sounds good."
WGA arbitration
Beginning in October 2004, the Writers Guild of America, West conducted arbitration to determine writing credit for the scripts that had been written since Barry Levinson, who developed the film at Warner Bros. in 1987, left the project. Lewis Colick, James Toback and Tom Epperson disassociated themselves for credit by the WGA. Metacritic calculated a weighted average score of 46/100, based on 35 reviews.
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| style="text-align: left;" | "I'm very happy with the way the film turned out. Kevin loves my dad, and he wanted to do a tribute. My mother [who never remarried after her split from Darin] was speechless for a while after she saw it. It was emotional for her. There was a lot of truth and grit. But she couldn't be happier."
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| style="text-align: left;" | — Dodd Darin Desson Thomson from The Washington Post praised the actor's work, but also felt Spacey did not convincingly portray Darin in his early music career. Internet reviewer James Berardinelli found the storyline to be overtly clichéd, but added, "Despite the choppy narrative and inappropriate casting of Spacey, Beyond the Sea managed to keep me entertained."
Roger Ebert gave a largely positive review, stating, "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." Stephen Holden of The New York Times felt that "with Beyond the Sea, Spacey crawls back from his doomed quest to be a Tom Hanks-like everyman to his niche on the underbelly of Hollywood's pantheon. The movie's a mess, and at 45, Spacey is far too old to play Darin. Yet the star captures his desperation, his braggadocio, and yes, his magnetism." Peter Travers, writing in Rolling Stone magazine, believed Spacey could not prevent "the movie from groaning under the weight of biopic clichés. But the actor forges a bond with his subject that rights all wrongs. Doing his own singing (an uncanny imitation), Spacey is a marvel."
Box office
The film opened in limited release in the United States on December 17, 2004, and went into wider release on December 29. It grossed $6,318,709 in the US and $2,128,906 in international markets for a total worldwide box office of $8,447,615. It was declared a box office bomb because it did not make back its $25 million budget.
Home media
On June 7, 2005, the film was released on DVD in widescreen anamorphic format for Region 1 markets. It features two Dolby Digital English audio tracks (one in 2.0 Stereo and the other in 5.1 Surround Sound), director's commentary by Spacey, and a making-of featurette.