Critic Reviews

Kevin Spacey, both as star and director, has created a hugely entertaining, highly empathetic portrait of a man for whom music was literally the thing that kept him alive.

Put simply, the film is a dazzling and fearless piece of showmanship.

As long as Spacey is singing, the movie soars.

Doing his own singing (an uncanny imitation), Spacey is a marvel.

It is also probably relevant that Spacey, in preparing the project, knew something we could not guess: He is a superb pop singer.

The imagination, energy, chutzpah and sheer affection shown for Darin by director-writer-star Spacey, who plays the singer, are admirable, kicky. This is a movie, that, like Darin himself, takes a lot of chances and delivers on many of them.

It's raffish, flashy, energetic, entertaining and not very deep.

Artfully structured, combining old-school MGM-type musical numbers with occasional postmodern flourishes to keep the narrative moving.

Spacey's brazen casting isn't as beyond the pale as it ought to be. In fact, it's hard to imagine this strange and only occasionally successful movie without him.

The real stars are the orchestrators and musicians who swaddled Spacey in a gorgeous blanket of sound.