I grew up listening to Neil Diamond, and appreciate his music even more in my middle aged years — still getting used to that defining characteristic! I saw the Broadway show, A Beautiful Noise, about his life and career, and have a handful of his records. His songs blend in with Brandi Carlile, Allman Brothers, Harry Connick, Jr., Lynyrd Skynyrd, Joni Mitchell and George Gershwin on my playlists.
So when I saw that Hugh Jackman, one of my favorite actors, was going to play a Neil Diamond impersonator (his character Lightning hated that word!), I knew this movie, Song Sung Blue, was going to be a must see for me. Imagine my surprise when I sat down to the “Monday Mystery Movie” at Landmark in Midtown this Monday, and up on the screen pop up Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson, thanking the audience for screening the movie. The last Monday Mystery Movie I saw was Eternity; read my review here.
Back to Hugh Jackman… I fell in love with him when I saw a recording of Oklahoma! from when he played Curly in London’s West End. He blew Gordon MacRae out of the water. I had no idea who Hugh Jackman was then (maybe in 2001 or 2002?), but I grew up watching the 1955 Oklahoma, so I knew the movie and all of the songs. The show was in stage in 1999, but I saw it in a movie theater when I was living in the D.C. area after college. Then came Someone Like You and Wolverine, and his Hollywood star took off.
But most people didn’t know he could sing until his singing roles in Les Miserables (2012) and The Greatest Showman (2017). In 2022, I made a trip to NYC to see him on stage as Harold Hill, opposite his now girlfriend, Sutton Foster, in The Music Man. The chemistry they had together was undeniable, so I wasn’t shocked when they got together a couple of years later. Now I knew Kate Hudson could sing from the first moment I heard her sing Elton John’s Tiny Dancer in Almost Famous.
But the chemistry between Jackman and his costar in Song Sung Blue, Kate Hudson, is equally undeniable. While watching the movie, you forget that these are actors and not real people. Kate Hudson’s performance is especially electric as she drags you into the roller coaster of emotions that her character experiences. She has already been nominated for a Golden Globe for this role, and is already generating Oscar buzz. She was also nominated for Best Supporting Acress for Almost Famous, and won a Golden Globe for that role as well.
The movie is based on a documentary of a real life couple, Mike (Hugh Jackman) and Claire Sardina (Kate Hudson) and follows the struggling musicians who meet performing as Elvis and Patsy Cline impersonators at honky tonks and county fairs. They decide to team up and concentrate on Neil Diamond songs since there are already so many Elvis impersonators, and sparks quickly follow. Claire can also ditch her Patsy Cline wig. Written and directed by Craig Brewer, the movie takes you through the winding journey of the ups and downs of their relationship and career, including Mike’s sobriety and Claire’s accident and the aftermath. Just when you think things are going their way, fate steps in and says, not so fast.
Other actors that I recognized included Fisher Stevens and Jim Belushi, who are part of Thunder & Lightning’s entourage. Belushi plays the band’s booking agent who bumbles through booking gigs in the most blundering but comical manner. Stevens plays both Mike’s dentist and his manager. I don’t know if it was my adoration of Fisher Stevens (fell in love with him in Short Circuit!) or that I’ve spent so much time at the dentist this past month, but Stevens and Belushi’s comedic spins were just what the movie needed between the heavy scenes with the conversations and drama about sobriety and financial hardships.
I adored the children – Claire’s daughter, Rachel, particularly, and her son, Dana, who both grow very close to Mike, and Mike’s daughter, who finds an unlikely ally in Claire’s daughter.  Their relationships evolve as the family and their needs change; from the first time that they meet each other, through the marriage and the tribulations and celebrations that the family endures, you get a sense of how they come to rely on each other.
Some other tidbits I found interesting:
Rachel calls Mike “Papa” which is what Kate Hudson calls Kurt Russell, who has been with her mother, Goldie Hawn, since the 1980s.
My Milwaukee friends will no doubt love this story since this is where the story took place. Maybe they even saw Thunder & Lightning in concert in real life!
Kate Hudson and Hugh Jackman did some good old fashioned (my favorite Wisconsin drink, by the way) grassroots marketing, hitting Jackman’s old NYC haunt, Old Mates Pub, and singing Sweet Caroline with the crowd. I follow both Hudson and Jackman on Instagram, so I was overjoyed when I saw them sharing these clips. And as a content marketing professional, I love UGC (user generated content for those not in the social media or content space)!
Don’t wait for streaming for this one. Go to the theater so you can sing along and dance in your seats with everyone else. Share in the joys and sorrows of the true story with strangers sitting near you. In between the sing-along moments, during the quiet, heart-wrenching scenes, I could hear sniffling and a couple of sobs. So please, please, take Kleenex and don’t resort to the concession stand napkins I had to use.
Song Sung Blue comes out on Christmas Day.
If you want more information about the real couple, Mike and Claire…
Story about the couple from a local Milwaukee organization
Sravanthi Meka 