Gary Dretzka
Leonard Klady
David Poland
Ray Pride

Beyond the Sea

I saw the third act (and the first two acts that I had seen before as well) of Beyond The Sea on Sunday, with a paying audience, and I have to say, the reaction was one of delight… for that audience.

There is, in fact, such a significant shift in the film's tone from the first two acts to the third that I really feel like I have to go sit through the movie a third time to make full sense of what I've seen.

I will say this. The film uses a staging device that just doesn't work. Kevin Spacey looks every bit his age in every frame of film. Kevin Spacey can sing very well, though his skills as an on-stage entertainer are limited and his spurts of improvisation while singing seem terribly contrived. (Of course, they have to be, since music is pre-recorded for musicals for purposes of matching.)

I don't think I will ever be able to say that I like this film. And my sense of how it ended up where it is now assumes a lot of editing and the best edit of a complex and flawed production. But I think it is reasonable to give Spacey and his dream project as much room to breathe as possible. Especially when I am still trying to figure out what the hell he was thinking.

- by David Poland

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