(2.5 stars)
You’d be forgiven for thinking “Song Sung Blue” is a Neil Diamond biopic. Hollywood can’t seem to stop trying to immortalize famous performers by churning out heavy-handed reenactments of their inspiring life stories. What’s another, really?
But the new film is a far more interesting addition to the genre. Rather than centering on Diamond himself, it follows Milwaukee couple Mike (Hugh Jackman) and Claire Sardina (Kate Hudson) as they pay tribute to the singer with their 1990s cover band Lightning & Thunder. The musical biopic features Jackman’s impression of a man known for doing a different impression, an oddly meta premise that sets the effort apart.
Director Craig Brewer (“Hustle & Flow,” “Coming 2 America”) helms this exceptionally earnest film based on Greg Kohs’s 2008 documentary of the same name. Mike, a veteran who has been sober 20 years, meets the upbeat hairdresser Claire in the late 1980s at the Wisconsin State Fair, where they and other small-time singers perform onstage as musical legends. Claire does a take on Patsy Cline, while Mike is supposed to be Don Ho. But he storms off instead, determined to make a name for himself some other way.
It’s not that Mike doesn’t enjoy Ho. He just wants to cover an artist whose discography is as meaningful to him as Diamond’s (and doesn’t believe he is capable of writing good music himself). Suddenly, it clicks: Mike pitches a Diamond tribute band to Claire, who signs on as the Thunder to his Lightning. They fall in love, blend their families — which include Mike’s teenage daughter Angelina (King Princess), plus Claire’s similarly aged daughter Rachel (Ella Anderson) and young son Dana (Hudson Hensley) — and spend as many evenings as they can jamming out at bars and small venues around town.
The harmonious tale cannot sustain an entire feature film, nor does Brewer expect it to: A dramatic plot twist throws the Sardinas for a loop, and you wonder whether Lightning & Thunder will recover. “If you wrote it as fiction, it’d be thrown out,” Jackman said of the story during a recent appearance on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.”
He’s right. While Wisconsinites might remember the tribute band from back in the day, odds are most people watching will have a hard time imagining some of these events unfolding in real life. These sequined crooners opened for Pearl Jam?! Why, yes. Yes, they did. The film benefits from the reminder that it all really happened. (Though I have to assume the dialogue, cheesy as the state’s dairy output, is heavily fictionalized.)
Hudson helps sell it with a grounded performance that might be her best since “Almost Famous.” The actress, long pigeonholed as a rom-com star, is believable as a Midwestern mom struggling to make ends meet. In addition to the real Claire, Hudson modeled her Wisconsin accent — slightly exaggerated, but decent — on a former nanny and longtime assistant from Pewaukee. This story is designed to make you root for the Sardinas, but Hudson’s charm makes their underdog narrative all the more compelling.
Her gorgeous, slightly husky singing voice is a good match for Jackman’s booming vocals. Brewer needed an actor with an immense amount of theater-kid energy to convey the passion with which an adult man nicknamed Lightning sings Diamond’s hits, and the Tony winner does so convincingly. Jackman plays Mike, a recovering alcoholic, as someone incapable of moderation — but treats the character with understanding generosity and grace. What he and Hudson lack in romantic chemistry they make up for with electric performances that could convert even the greatest of Diamond haters (save for the nay-saying biker gang that forces Lightning & Thunder out of a bar).
Brewer and cinematographer Amy Vincent, with whom he previously worked on “Hustle & Flow” and the “Footloose” remake, shoot these performance scenes with dynamic camera movements that transport the audience to Lightning & Thunder’s sides. That could mean onstage with Eddie Vedder (John Beckwith) or at band practice in their garage. At one point, a handheld camera jerks up and down with Mike as he leaps into the air, a simple maneuver channeling the Sardinas’ playful creative spirit.
Mike avoids playing “Sweet Caroline” early on in Lightning & Thunder’s sets because he wants everyone listening to discover that other Diamond songs, such as his African folk music-inspired “Soolaimón,” are just as enjoyable. But at the Sardinas’ wedding reception, the popular tune pulses through the hall like it’s Fenway Park.
Listening to “Sweet Caroline” feels like a hug — warm and fuzzy to some, smothering to others. Watching “Song Sung Blue” has a similar effect. Even as the Sardinas’ narrative twists and turns, you pretty much know how you’ll feel at the end of this emotional journey. That familiarity can be a comfort, or it can be a bit of a letdown.
But you can’t blame anyone for trying. Lightning & Thunder never give up.
PG-13. At area theaters. Contains thematic material, strong language, some sexual material and brief drug use. 131 minutes.
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