E-Mail This Article to a Friend Beyond Bobby Kevin Spacey goes on an ego trip BY TED DROZDOWSKI
	Beyond the Sea Directed by Kevin Spacey. Written by Kevin Spacey. Choreography by Rob Ashford. With Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth, John Goodman, Bob Hoskins, Brenda Blethyn, Greta Scacchi, William Ullrich, and Caroline Aaron. A Lions Gate Films release (121 minutes). At the Boston Common, the Fenway, the Fresh Pond, and the Circle/Chestnut Hill and in the suburbs.

Playing a likable egomaniac comes naturally to Kevin Spacey, who sings, dances, and glides through his portrayal of the 1960s pop icon Bobby Darin in Beyond the Sea. So naturally, it’s hard to tell the difference between his own narcissism and that of his characterization. In the end, the film is all about Spacey, who is so intent on displaying his talents as a hoofer and a vocalist that he’s willing to trample the details of Darin’s life under fancy footwork.

Here’s what we do learn about Darin, who was born Walden Robert Cassotto in 1936 and died in 1973 following open-heart surgery, and his 16-year career. Actually, we don’t learn that his first name was Walden, but we do see young Bobby, played as precocious and somewhat smug by William Ullrich, fighting with the rheumatic fever that would weaken his heart and ultimately shorten his life. Early on, we also see the first of a series of poorly choreographed and assaultingly out-of-place dance sequences that — along with Spacey’s occasional departures from the story to address the camera and converse with his childhood self — keep us awkwardly bouncing between fantasy and reality.

Although a doctor informs Darin’s mother, Polly (Brenda Blethyn), that her son probably won’t live to age 15, the former vaudeville hoofer and singer instills young Bobby with a love of music and ambitions of stardom that keep him ticking. Forming a management and musical team of his Bronx buddies — these include John Goodman playing his manager Steve Blauner as a kind of urban Fred Flintstone and Bob Hoskins reduced to speaking in "dese" and "dose" New Yorkisms as Darin’s brother-in-law and valet Charlie Cassotto Maffia — grown-up Darin leaves the ’hood for faraway, uh, Manhattan and is soon playing nickel-and-dime joints with a repertoire gigantically eclipsed by his ego.

We never see how he does it, but in short order he’s on TV singing his first hit, "Splish Splash," in 1958 and getting the teen-idol treatment from a bevy of swooning bobby-soxers. The age difference between the 45-year-old Spacey’s Darin and his fans is squirm-inducing, and it gets no better when he begins his on-the-set pursuit of Sandra Dee, whom Darin met while making his debut movie, Come September, in 1960. Dee was 18 at the time, and here she’s played by 21-year-old Kate Bosworth. Nonetheless, their whirlwind courtship is one of the film’s highs, driven by Spacey’s buoyant delivery of the film’s title song, the colorful costumes, and a sprightly dash through the beautiful Italian countryside. From then on, their marriage is portrayed as a fairy tale of devotion, occasionally tattered by the clash of their egos and by alcohol abuse, but intact at the film’s end, where Dee clutches her man in his hospital bed as he slips quietly into the night. Actually, they’d been divorced for six years when Darin died.

The movie’s one plot twist — unless you’re familiar with Darin’s biography — is the 1968 admission by his sister Nina (played for camp by Caroline Aaron) that she was actually his mother and that Polly was his grandmother. It’s a revelation that sends Darin — whose career is portrayed as being on the skids but who was in reality still five years away from his 1972-’73 NBC TV variety show and doing boffo box office — spinning into self-examination, if not ego reduction, and somehow it seems to contribute to the genesis of his solitary protest number, "Simple Song of Freedom." All of the oxygen huffing and determination that keeps Darin performing until he’s felled by congestive heart failure culminates in an elegant song-and-dance routine featuring Spacey’s Darin and Ullrich as his younger self making like Fred Astaire with their matching tuxedoes and steps.

Spacey’s directorial debut, the 1996 thriller Albino Alligator, thrived on grit and characterization. He’s a huge Darin fan who is said to have been looking for an opportunity to produce this bio-pic for 15 years, but his self-involvement seems to have erased his judgment. Many of the production numbers would be destroyed by Broadway choreographer Rob Ashford’s clumsy hackwork if not for Spacey’s physical grace and his ability to sing like Darin. Even that final climactic spin with his mini-me seems nicked from dozens of ’40s and ’50s musicals. Spacey’s tone isn’t quite as rich as Darin’s, and his phrasing, the way he slides up to big-payoff notes, is not as smooth, but that’s nit-picking. Spacey’s own skills as a singer and dancer are what put a slight shine on this mealy apple of a movie.