Director: Craig Brewer
Writer: Craig Brewer
Stars: Hugh Jackman, Kate Hudson, Michael Imperioli
Synopsis: Based on a true story, two down-on-their-luck musicians form a joyous Neil Diamond tribute band, proving it’s never too late to find love and follow your dreams.
The unjustified mocking of the trailers for Craig Brewer’s Song Sung Blue revealed that audiences weren’t interested in viewing Greg Kohs’ 2008 documentary of the same name, which acts as the basis of the feature film adaptation of the life of Mike and Claire Sardina (played by Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson), aspiring musicians with a simple desire to entertain. Kohs’ film is available to watch for free on YouTube, and hasn’t been part of the discussion surrounding this film, whose criticism honestly seemed mean-spirited when not knowing how genuinely impassioned these unknown musical figures were. Yes, both Mike and Claire Sardina were part of a Neil Diamond tribute band nicknamed “Lightning & Thunder.” Of course, it’s part of their identity as “artists,” but the documentary barely focuses on this. Instead, it draws a tragic portrait of two real characters™ who, once their entertainer façades are peeled back, reveal their darkest truths in often harrowing ways.
In contrast, Brewer’s Song Sung Blue is never interested in the part that makes their story worth telling. Oh, sure, it recounts many of the horrific parts of both Mike and Claire’s lives, but it’s like a Wikipedia summary of their time as “Lighting & Thunder,” rather than an understanding of who these people are as flawed human beings. For instance, Brewer opens with Mike celebrating his 20th sober birthday, as an ex-alcoholic who traded the bottle for a guitar, singing Neil Diamond’s “Song Sung Blue” every year at AA meetings. If he can’t make it, he will record it so the video can be played to his group. Mike attempted to numb himself from the horrors he saw as a Vietnam veteran through alcohol, but it only brought him more pain and health issues. After giving it up, he now tries to shield that pain via the persona he wants to adopt as a Neil Diamond “interpreter,” with an insatiable desire to entertain and enthrall not just Wisconsin, but the world.
Kohs makes the associations between Vietnam and the persona of “Lightning” through a testimony from his brother (Mike refuses to talk about his experience in the war, and justifiably so), which makes us understand, more than anything, why he’s so convinced that his purpose in the world is to entertain people, alongside Claire, the love of his life. Unfortunately, Brewer is only interested in the “surface” of his details, as a former alcoholic who now wants to sing. That’s it. Vietnam is mentioned only once, through his daughter, Angelina (King Princess), as she recounts his personal struggles to Claire’s daughter, Rachel (Ella Anderson), upon their first meeting.
Our understanding of the character (and, by extension, Claire) is limited because it focuses primarily on the musical aspects of their careers, when this is the least interesting part of their lives, and the one where we don’t see the humans behind what they put in front of audiences on stage. You’ll get extended sequences where both Lighting and Thunder perform Neil Diamond tunes such as “Soolaimon,” “Cherry, Cherry,” “Holly Holy,” and, of course, “Sweet Caroline,” which is repeated more than once in this movie to, of course, further commercialize his most popular song, but features no actual moments where we sit with them and realize who they are as humans, even through their darkest period.
The endless musical numbers obviously extend what could’ve been a tight, emotionally impactful 100-minute dramedy into an overlong, dreary 131-minute slog that never knows when to end or what to extract from these people. The film paints them as empty shells who lived an occasionally uplifting (but frequently punishing) life, whilst the documentary makes us aware of “Lightning & Thunder” not as a mere Neil Diamond cover band, but as people who lived and breathed entertainment and showmanship. However, external factors (including a tragic car accident) sadly never led them to experience any form of success beyond opening for Pearl Jam and singing “Forever in Blue Jeans” with its lead singer, Eddie Vedder.
It was the biggest crowd they’d ever performed for, though at the time they didn’t know it would also be their last. I’ll give Brewer credit for wanting to make Song Sung Blue more inspirational in tracking the emotional journeys of both Mike and Claire. Yet, he does so by altering key tragic events into purely manipulative crap. While it’s understandable that details are changed when crafting a biography to fit feature-film considerations, this romanticization dilutes the story’s emotional impact. It plays with the audience’s feelings as if they can’t earn them on their own. For anyone who doesn’t know the tragic end of “Lightning & Thunder,” I’ll keep the details vague, but it’s absolutely in no way similar to what actually occurred when Neil Diamond arrived in Milwaukee to perform in front of a sold-out crowd.
The only time we’ll experience some interiority is when Brewer and cinematographer Amy Vincent put us in Claire’s mind, after the accident, experiencing what a doctor refers to as “Phantom Pain,” and losing her sense of self due to the medications she takes, but it never goes as deep as it should. It’s presented as a minor problem that will easily be fixed once Mike sends her to rehab, rather than one of many cataclysmic events that sadly ended their careers at “Lighting & Thunder” before it even had the chance to blossom.
I might have appreciated the changes, particularly near the movie’s denouement, if it had been simply a construct of Mike or Claire’s imagination, which would’ve made it feel less manipulative and more direct, with the audience realizing that their biggest dreams will sadly not be realized. It’d be a different way to discuss the most challenging part of Mike and Claire’s stories, but it would’ve fit the mandate of filmically transposing the documentary for a broad audience. That said, Brewer doesn’t do this and instead transforms this dark, but necessary story into one of ridicule, with Jackman and Hudson failing to capture what drove both of these people to never give up on their dreams, despite many painful strikes of lightning on their individual (and collective) paths.
Only Ella Anderson, King Princess, and Mustafa Shakir give this film some much-needed vigor, while director of photography Vincent (who also shot Brewer’s best movie, 2004’s Hustle & Flow) represents this story with enough lively colors and formal dynamism to at least keep audiences moderately engaged. The final number is somewhat show-stopping, but the repurposing it offers for Mike Sardina’s story leaves a more questionable taste in the mouth than an inspiring one, especially when Brewer uses Diamond’s presence as a mystical, unseen deity that no one will get to meet, and a ticking time bomb we can push buttons on.
It’s safe to say that, after the horrendous The Son and Deadpool & Wolverine, Hugh Jackman has entered his flopsweat era. He’s a great performer – and actor – but his talents are not worthy of starring in films that don’t benefit from what he can bring to the screen. There’s hope that Michael Sarnoski’s The Death of Robin Hood will bring him back to his glory days. Unfortunately, since Avengers: Reddit is right around the corner (he’s definitely in it, or in Reddit 2, coming out in 2027), his potential comeback through Sarnoski’s film may be dead on arrival. In any event, Mike and Claire Sardina deserved so much better than a film that ridicules them instead of celebrating their enduring resilience as simple human beings who only wanted to entertain and had to go through a literal and figurative Hell to simply prove themselves to the world. The saddest part is that they were never able to reap any rewards and have been largely forgotten today…
