The latest musical biopic is not a gleaming hagiography seeking to lionize the glamorous lives of rock stars or fawning fan service mythologizing their lavish escapades. Instead, Song Sung Blue, from filmmaker Craig Brewer, revolves around a real-life Neil Diamond tribute act, comprised of Mike, played by Hugh Jackman, and Claire Sardina, played by Kate Hudson, better known by their theatrical stage names: Thunder and Lightning.
Despite such grandiose monikers, these personas are confined to the stage, where the duo disappears into their performances and, for the fleeting duration of their setlist, transcends the despondent realities to which they are bound. Offstage, Mike and Claire are middle-aged, divorced, and barely middle-class Midwesterners, juggling odd jobs, overcoming alcoholism, raising children as single parents, and pouring any remnants of their energy into playing music.
It is at the Wisconsin State Fair in Milwaukee, amid a lineup awash in gimmicky impersonators, from a wig-wearing facsimile of Elvis to a neat and trim Buddy Holly, that the embryonic power duo first meet. Mike, ever the individualist, affirms that he is not some trite vaudeville act, but rather his own unique character, Lightning. His ardor immediately captivates Claire, who in turn enchants him with her performance of Patsy Cline’s “Walkin’ After Midnight.” Kate Hudson’s soulful vocals, imbued with warmth and playful country twang, would enthrall anyone with functioning ears.
Their bond solidifies the first time they play together in Claire’s cramped, threadbare apartment. Their impromptu cover of Diamond’s “Cherry, Cherry” has the weight of a shared history behind it. They feel their way through the song, instinctively layering harmonies and piano fills where appropriate. By the time Claire’s elderly mother intrudes, awakened from her sleep and vexed, asking them to turn it down, it’s clear they have something special.
Mike and Claire yearn to regale crowds and pay homage to Neil Diamond in the process. “You want to be a Neil Diamond interpreter, not an imitator,” Claire explains, with the film taking the distinction seriously. From there, Song Sung Blue traces their tempestuous journey, marked by euphoric highs and the inevitable, often devastating lows that follow.
Among the film’s good qualities is the conviction with which Mike Sardina champions Neil Diamond’s music beyond the one hit everyone knows. “There’s more to Neil Diamond than ‘Sweet Caroline,’” he fumes. “He’s got hundreds of songs, and all anyone wants to hear is” — in chromatic descent — “bom, bom, bom.” It’s a fair complaint. Many viewers may not even realize that the indelible “I’m a Believer,” made famous by The Monkees, was written by Diamond.
The film briefly touches on Mike Sardina’s background as a Vietnam War veteran in a single scene, where he invokes an army problem-solving framework to guide his daughter through an unexpected pregnancy. Brewer’s restraint here, in resisting the temptation to frame Mike as a passive victim of circumstance, a diminution Sardina himself would rebuke, is fitting.
However, it remains relevant to Sardina’s character that he served as a “tunnel rat” in Vietnam, a voluntary and exceptionally dangerous role that involved entering the Viet Cong’s underground tunnel networks in pitch darkness, navigating explosive traps, and close-quarters combat. Few survived the psychological toll of such ordeals. Fewer still emerged as endearing entertainers and devoted fathers. That Mike Sardina became the man he did feels as improbable as being struck by lightning.
Having only just shed the spandex and retractable blades of last year’s Deadpool & Wolverine, Hugh Jackman, a veritable musical talent, vanishes into the role with striking ease. Kate Hudson, aptly dubbed Thunder, delivers one of the finest performances of her career as the emotional center of both the film and the Sardina family, whose ordeals and perseverance are an inspiration in their own right.
The casting is uncannily precise. The film is inspired by Greg Kohs’s 2008 documentary of the same name, available on YouTube, and watching the real Mike and Claire Sardina only underscores how faithfully their charisma and passion for performance are captured.
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Song Sung Blue deals in hard truths and difficult realities. It is a story about finding the spirit to persevere through the darkest of circumstances and finding solace in the uplifting power of music. Diamond’s title song underscores the film’s ethos: “Me and you are subject to the blues / but when you take the blues and make a song / you sing them out again … and before you know it / you get to feelin’ good.”
That is what Lightning and Thunder do. Not because music can magically remedy life, but because it can make life bearable and sometimes even beautiful.
Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) is a film critic for the Washington Examiner‘s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a software engineer, holds a master’s degree from the University of Toronto, and writes about wine at BetweenBottles.com.