The new movie from producer-director-writer Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow, Coming 2 America) really wants you to like it, until it dares you to feel otherwise. It wants to seduce you with its feel-good vibe, until it sheds it. It wants you to accept the tropes as “reality,” until they obscure the origin story.
Even for all of that, Song Sung Blue has a lot to recommend it, starting with Kate Hudson’s Golden Globe-nominated performance as Claire Sardina, one half of the Neil Diamond tribute band Lightning & Thunder, opposite Hugh Jackman as her husband Mike. The couple performed together around Milwaukee and Chicago for nearly two decades, until 2006. This film basically dramatizes a 2008 documentary about the couple with the same title, written and directed by Greg Kohs.
Hudson and Jackman have palpable chemistry, and the picture’s early scenes play naturally and believably. They meet at the Wisconsin State Fair, where she performs as a Patsy Cline tribute artist, and he as a hard rocker. (Jackman’s array of hairpieces readily identify this story as a period piece.) She auditions for his band after he refuses to impersonate Don Ho and gravitates to Neil Diamond’s songs instead. They both love music, as art and as therapy, and Brewer never patronizes these characters. He aims for emotional highs, just as they do.
Claire has two kids–a rebellious daughter and a fatherless son–and a series of failed relationships (including an ex-husband) on her resume. Mike, who had served in the military, has twenty years of sobriety to celebrate, in addition to an estranged daughter who periodically visits from Texas. They readily bond, marry, work on their arrangements and wardrobes, and pursue their dreams. They even get to open for, and sing with, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam!
The musical numbers are generally well staged, shot and edited. Brewer and cinematographer Amy Vincent, who also collaborated with the director on Hustle & Flow and the 2011 remake of Footloose, keep the camera moving, almost floating, circling the action in clubs and other venues, roaming the crowds and capturing the interplay of the two leads. Jackman and Hudson, both very credible singers, deliver Diamond’s greatest hits–not just “Sweet Caroline”--with enthusiasm. Unlike the remarkable audio wizardry of Wicked, however, the music for Song Sung Blue was recorded and produced in the studio, not on set. You can tell the difference. Sometimes the voices in particular seem to stand out from, rather than settle into, the ambient sound of the on-screen performance spaces. Yes, Wicked spoiled us.
Especially if you’re not familiar with the story of the Sardinas and their blended family, what happens in the second half of the movie may well startle, if not disturb, you. Prepare to gasp when an accident leaves Claire with a prosthetic leg, an addiction to painkillers and doubts about her husband’s faithfulness. Prepare to murmur when a heart issue leads to a nasty, ominous fall for Mike. Prepare for an unplanned pregnancy and an unlikely sisterhood. Prepare to accept that lightning can strike twice.
Mind you, all of the above actually happened. The challenge for Brewer lay in providing his talented actors with credible dialogue and direction to make these abrupt narrative and emotional detours resonate with his audience. Unfortunately, the film occasionally descends into superficial melodrama. It becomes cringey and cloying, despite the best efforts of Hudson and Jackman. It makes real-life events seem contrived. It reminds us that documentaries play by significantly different rules.
Ella Anderson as Rachel, Claire’s daughter by her first husband, and King Princess as Angelina, Mike’s daughter from his first marriage, make the most of their newfound relationship. Likewise, Michael Imperioli (Goodfellas, The Sopranos, The White Lotus) nicely plays against type as Mark Shurilla, a Buddy Holly impersonator turned guitarist-accompanist.
Song Sung Blue provides Kate Hudson with a memorable role to inhabit, both as an actor and as a singer-keyboardist. This is ultimately her film, and she is mostly solid in her portrayal. In fact, her musical performance at Mike’s funeral–she nails the scene–should have been the climax to the story. Instead, we get a home movie epilogue with him mugging for his stepson’s camera while celebrating yet another year of sobriety. An important milestone for the character, to be sure, but an anticlimax for the audience.
Even when the tropes and the melodrama make the picture seem more ordinary, Song Sung Blue can still boast the music–not to mention the sequins. Even without Neil Diamond’s presence, his catalogue stars. (“Soolaimon” becomes a recurring source of amusement.) Indeed, the movie really wants you to like it. Even if you feel like tuning out at times, you can still feel the love, and you can always sing along.
