Song Sung Blue
Kate Hudson provides the backbone to a real-life love story about a Neil Diamond tribute duo.
Music to their ears: Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson
Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.
by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Extraordinary things happen to ordinary people all the time. Take the highlights of anybody’s life and extract the boring bits and you would probably find yourself with a story well worth telling. Even so, the rollercoaster love story of Mike Sardina and Claire Stingl is something else and with the boring bits excised, Song Sung Blue borders on the melodramatic. What, another heart attack? Another trip to the hospital? But, worry not, there will be a singalong around the corner and their kids will make up and the tears will be wiped away. Until the next disaster. However, Craig Brewer’s cheesy biopic is saved from the video bin by Kate Hudson and her livewire performance, which appears to be operating on several levels at once: whether the actress is giving her all on stage as Patsy Cline or losing her marbles at the homestead.
Unlike such recent musical biopics as A Complete Unknown and Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, this is the tale of a Neil Diamond impersonator. Originally Mike Sardina (Hugh Jackman) was an impressionist of Don Ho (a one-hit wonder from Hawaii), who changed direction when he met Patsy Cline, or at least the singer portraying her at a Wisconsin State Fair tribute concert. Mike has grown tired of Don Ho (the latter’s songbook is not inspiring) and wants to be himself. Claire Stingl (Kate Hudson) also wants him to be himself and before long they’ve formed their own duet, Lightning & Thunder: The Neil Diamond Experience. She’s Thunder, he’s Lightning, and he makes sure he gets top-billing. This was long before the HeForShe movement…
One problem with Craig Brewer’s film is the sight of Hugh Jackman impersonating a nobody impersonating Neil Diamond. Hugh Jackman is such a recognisable public figure that it’s hard not to get confused and think that perhaps Mike Sardina is mimicking Wolverine. Another issue is with the hits of Neil Diamond, whose songbook here immediately unites strangers in joyous rapture as they belt out the lyrics to ‘Song Sung Blue’ (“Song sung blue/Everybody knows one…”). But do you? At least Neil Diamond’s stature as a naff singer is addressed early on when an audience of bikers turns nasty. We needed more of this.
The broad strokes of the film and the freewheeling dash across time – oh, look, Mike’s sideburns have turned grey – gives the whole thing an air of soap opera. Hugh Jackman is normally an inordinately likeable presence, but Mike Sardina is not written in his favour (Mike is a little too full of himself), leaving the grit to Kate Hudson. And she’s no mean warbler, either, having previously knocked out the number ‘Cinema Italiano’ in Rob Marshall’s musical Nine (2009) and released her own pop/rock album, Glorious, in 2024. There’s excellent support, too, from Ella Anderson as Claire’s daughter Rachel, who has her own litany of mishaps, and King Princess [sic] as Mike’s daughter Angelina. The three of them almost make the journey worthwhile.
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Kate Hudson, Michael Imperioli, Ella Anderson, King Princess, Mustafa Shakir, Hudson Hensley, Jim Belushi, Fisher Stevens, John Beckwith, Beth Malone.
Dir Craig Brewer, Pro John Davis, John Fox and Craig Brewer, Screenplay Craig Brewer, based on the documentary by Greg Kohs, Ph Amy Vincent, Pro Des Clay A. Griffith, Ed Billy Fox, Music Scott Bomar, Costumes Ernesto Martinez, Dialect coach Jess Platt.
Davis Entertainment-Universal Pictures.
132 mins. USA. 2025. US Rel: 25 December 2025. UK Rel: 1 January 2026. Cert. 12A.
