Apparently, many people thought the new movie Song Sung Blue was a biopic about the singer Neil Diamond. No. It’s a biopic of a Neil Diamond tribute band fronted by “Mike and Claire Sardina, a real-life couple that performed covers of Diamond classics in Wisconsin under their act ‘Lightning and Thunder.’ Directed by Craig Brewer, the movie dramatizes how the couple fell in love, became a hit in the Milwaukee area, survived a life-altering accident, and made a comeback.”
And that’s the arc of the new movie with the same title. Mike (Hugh Jackman) was a journeyman performer, covering a variety of artists before meeting Claire (Oscar-nominated Kate Hudson), who specialized in covering Patsy Cline. He tells her early that it was his birthday, but in a subsequent meeting, that it was his sobriety birthday.
At least in the movie, it was Claire who suggested to Mike that he specialize in being Neil. “It took a while to build a following. It’s true, as the movie shows, that the pair was booed out of a biker bar in Chicago. But after performing at the giant music festival Summerfest and the Wisconsin State Fair, their fan base grew. Singing “Forever in Blue Jeans” with Eddie Vedder in 1995 as the opening act for a Pearl Jam concert put them on the map.”
Credible
The movie chemistry between Jackman and Hudson was believable. They were on some show together (CBS Mornings?) Jackman was attached to the film first and was enthusiastic about Hudson after he saw an interview with Hudson about then-new music album.
There were some funny moments in the film. One involved Mike’s oblivousness about what Pearl Jam was. Another was when Mike and Claire tell Claire’s daughter Rachel (Ella Anderson) that she would be meeting Mike’s daughter Angelina (King Princess), who usually lives with her mother in Florida. “What’s this, a playdate?”Claire also has a young son Dana (Hudson Hensley), who was NOT one of those cloying movie kids.
Some of the reviews (78% on Rotten Tomatoes) complained that the film was “made with such falsely constructed schmaltz.” But I was more in this camp: “What the movie does well is some well-staged musical numbers. Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson prove to be very capable singers in this movie. While the movie is a downer a lot of the time, the songs are uplifting for the most part.” And that middle act WAS a downer, though it reflected Mike and especially Claire’s, reality.
I like Neil Diamond well enough, especially his early stuff. (Alas, Thank The Lord For the Night Time didn’t make the cut, even when they had a choir on stage.)
My wife and I liked Song Sung Blue, as did 97% of the Rotten Tomatoes audience. We saw it on MLK Day at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany.