"You've gotta marry me soon, baby. I can't afford to keep paying these extras to follow us around, dancing."

Here’s what I knew about Bobby Darin before seeing Beyond the Sea: He sang "Mack the Knife" and (duh) "Beyond the Sea." He was married to Sandra Dee. He forbade his wife to use witchcraft. And to be fair, at least one of those facts is actually about Darrin Stevens from Bewitched.

So if you’re like me, and I’m not saying you are, you’re wondering, “why should I be interested in a biopic about Bobby Darin?” Well, there’s Kevin Spacey for one thing. Or, really, about half a dozen things if you go by how many times his name showed up in the credits. Not only does he act, sing and dance his way through the lead role, he directed, co-wrote and produced the movie and I think that kind of control-freakishness cries out for validation, so if you would see it that would be really great for him.

If the self-esteem of a two-time Oscar winner isn’t reason enough for you, you should also know that it’s a pretty good movie. Not a great movie, but a good one. But I’ll get to all that in a minute. First, the set-up:

Bobby Darin is a sickly child who isn’t expected to live to adulthood. But his mother (Brenda Blethyn) brightens his days with music lessons and before long he’s singing and dancing his way straight out of Brooklyn. He achieves fame, first as a singer of bubblegum pop, then with swingin’ standards and finally as a movie actor. The film shows us the drive and talent it took to get him there, as well as his marital and family conflicts.

"Look at me, I'm like TOTALLY Sandra Dee!"

All of which sounds fairly straightforward. The film is anything but. As the adult Bobby says to William Ullrich, playing the character as a child, “Memories are like moonbeams. We do what we want to with them.” Which, as a statement, doesn’t make much sense, but it does allow Spacey and his co-writer Lewis Colick to tell the story with surreal touches like full-blown musical numbers and the aforementioned Little Bobby, who pops in whenever Darin’s inner child needs a hug. The Moonbeam Theory also helps gloss over the fact that Spacey, who is considerably older than Darin was when he died, plays the character from about the age of 18. The fact is, in the movie’s world it just doesn’t matter. The story is told from Darin’s memories; if he’s remembering his youthful self as a 55-year-old man who are we to judge?

Especially since Spacey does such a phenomenal job of it. He does all his own singing, you know, and a fair bit of dancing as well. One thing I really appreciated about the movie is that the musical numbers kick it old school. Director Spacey presents most of the songs pretty much in their entirety, and edits them more in the style of 1950’s movie musicals than new-millennium music videos, with longer takes and wider shots so we can see that Spacey really is busting his own moves.

So that’s all good, and I really dug the soundtrack. What keeps Beyond the Sea from being a great movie? The script. Darin’s life, at least as presented here, is interesting, but lacks significance and context. I wasn’t really sure what made Darin important or unique as a performer. On a personal level, while his family relationships were well-drawn, I didn’t really get what drew or kept him and Sandra Dee (Kate Bosworth) together, though they both throw a pretty good tantrum.

Still, I may not have known much about Bobby Darin before seeing Beyond the Sea, but thanks to Kevin Spacey I now know that he was much more than Mack the Knife. If you’re a Darin fan, or simply want to see some fun musical numbers loosely held together by a story, well, the line forms on the right, babe. Bobby’s back in town.

Gorilla Pants rating: 3 out of 4 bananas