An earnest attempt by the talented Kevin Spacey to recreate the life and traumas of the singer Bobby Darin. Spacey actually sings the songs with good inflection in his voice, but (not surprisingly) sounding nothing like the real life crooner, who died in 1937, at the young age of 37. The movie seems to tell us more about its producer, director and writer (all Spacey) who admits to having a ten-year obsession with the singer. But truth is, the elaborate sets that jump from musical numbers and colorful costumes, to flashback of his childhood, feel more like a grand extravagant Broadway production of “All That Jazz”, than that of a motion picture. There is Spacey’s excessive need to take this man’s life very seriously, not to mention Spacey is much older than the singer whose career began in the 1950s. Kate Bosworth plays the quintessential dumb blonde, wife and actress, Sandra Dee, though the film mostly focuses on Darin’s estranged relationship with his devoted sister (Caroline Aaron) before taking a downward turn into his narcissistic issues (his baldness to alcohol abuse to his obsession with his rheumatic heart problem, since the age of 7). As his American Bandstand song sang out to thousands of screaming teen idols, this movie is most likely to “Splish Splash” its way mainly to video.
