If we were cynical about Song Sung Blue, the first and only response should have been: “Oh, come on.” After two decades in which Hollywood has packaged easily digestible biopics about nearly every rock and pop icon who ever scorched the airwaves — Elvis, Elton John, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Freddie Mercury, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Amy Winehouse, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, N.W.A., Tupac, and just in the past year Robbie Williams played by a monkey and Bruce Springsteen played by a “bear,” with Michael Jackson and each of the Beatles soon to get their own films — it felt like scraping the bottom of the barrel. Or rather, a barrel with no bottom. Song Sung Blue is already a biopic about a pair of Neil Diamond cover singers, complete with the “rise and fall” of people who are, in effect, imitating a second-tier icon. What’s next, a biopic about the sound engineer of Roxette?
And yet Song Sung Blue is a film without cynicism. Interestingly, precisely because it follows two singers who chose to perform songs that are not their own but carry personal meaning for them, its use of music feels justified rather than exploitative or formulaic (“when Elton was in love he wrote ‘Your Song,’ when he was high he wrote ‘Rocket Man’”). But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Written and directed by Craig Brewer, Song Sung Blue is based on a true story about a pair of singers from Wisconsin who became a couple and performed together in bars and small venues in the 1980s. At its core, it is about second acts. We meet the protagonists in their 40s and 50s, with musical careers that are the opposite of stardom.
The leads are Mike Sardina (Hugh Jackman, a man who will say yes to any musical), a recovering alcoholic and Vietnam War veteran who performs at fairs as an impersonator of rock and pop icons from the 1950s onward. The venue is one where even the performers know it exists mainly “to keep the elderly occupied while the kids go on the rides.” This is the film’s first point in its favor: healthy self-awareness. Mike still occasionally fantasizes about performing as his self-created persona, “Lightning,” but no one but him has any interest in the act.
At the fair he meets Claire (Kate Hudson), a divorced mother of grown children who also works as a costumed performer, impersonating third-tier country singers. They keep crossing paths, fall in love and build a new act together, “Lightning and Thunder” — she is “Thunder” — devoted entirely to Neil Diamond songs.
The focus on Diamond — simply because he is the artist the real-life duo chose to cover — is a double-edged sword, both for the characters and for the film. For Israeli audiences, and without offending any Neil Diamond fan club that may exist somewhere in the north, he is a second-tier legend, far from the heights of the names listed earlier. Still, for those who came of age in the 1970s and early 1980s, he may be an important figure, and Jewish, incidentally. Alongside the lavish praise Diamond receives throughout the film, the characters also admit that most people know only one of his songs, ‘Sweet Caroline,’ with the rest reserved for true devotees.
In any case, Song Sung Blue — named after a Diamond song Jackman insists on performing even when no one asks — is acutely aware of the loser quality that exists alongside the intimidating myth of pop icons: the relative loser status of the singer, of his imitators and of the entire situation. At the same time, it does not revel in that status with cruelty, as it might have in a broad comedy. Instead, it presents two mature people who understand they will never be stars, who carry flaws and addictions without ever having reached the top, and who try to make the best of what they have.
This brings us to one wonderful element of the film and one very problematic one: the gap between the two stars. The wonderful one is Kate Hudson. Without exaggeration, she is excellent and deeply moving, and entirely worthy of a second Oscar nomination. If that happens, it would be a fitting full circle: the daughter of Goldie Hawn, who received her first and only nomination a quarter-century ago for Almost Famous as a 1970s rock groupie, returning to similar territory as a woman on the margins of the music industry, rendered noble and human.
Hudson, 46, is fully convincing as a Midwestern mother, a tough woman who has seen and heard it all in music, relationships and parenting, and who steps into a new journey with an open smile.
The problematic element is Jackman. On one hand, it is hard not to like the singing Australian star, who appears to take on a more exposed role than usual. On the other, he never quite convinces. Throughout the film, it was impossible to forget that I was watching “the dazzling Hugh Jackman playing a former alcoholic with a strange haircut,” rather than truly inhabiting the character. His Hollywood charisma exposes his limitations as an actor: he does not fully lower his defenses or convey vulnerability. The result is a character it is unclear whether we are meant to admire, love, pity or mock, and, above all, one whose journey is hard to fully identify with.
The film’s second problem lies in its narrative path. Faithful to the real story, it nevertheless shifts tone and direction in the second half. Without spoiling, a series of extreme events interrupts the couple’s “rise” — it turns out that opening for Pearl Jam in Wisconsin is a major peak — and steers the film toward a far more melodramatic direction. This does not make the film bad, but it focuses more on illness and disaster, elements that only rarely produce great cinema.
Still, recalling certain 1980s films that blended romantic drama, humor, parent-child relationships and ultimately illness — Terms of Endearment comes to mind — it can be said that Song Sung Blue largely rises to the challenge. It delivers touching, sweet Hollywood cinema that is well written, relatable, slightly sentimental and mostly avoids kitsch. Almost. One long scene near the end tips into excessive tears and emotional indulgence, and it is unfortunate.
Overall, when weighing the good against the bad, the moving against the awkward, the cloying against the charming, what emerges is a successful film — especially for viewers not instinctively allergic to Hollywood movies that allow themselves a few tears. It is, indeed, a bittersweet song, mostly sweet.