NEIL DIAMOND TRIBUTE

JACKMAN, HUDSON AND NEIL DIAMOND IN THE SAME HARD TO BELIEVE STORY

by PETER THOMAS BUSCH

Neil Diamond twice removed still comes through as entertaining with the casting of Hugh Jackman in Song Sung Blue (2025).

Director Craig Brewer picks the story of the tribute band, Lightning and Thunder, composed of Mike and Claire Sardina of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The camera finds Mike with a day job not going so well, while the night job has compromised his integrity as a musician. Mike just wants to entertain, but the act mimicking famous acts has come to an end when he is asked to play Don Ho at the Wisconsin State Fair.

Claire, played by Kate Hudson, has been playing tributes to Patsy Cline when she bumps into Mike just off stage. The film finally gets underway as the two singers hit it off and begin a relationship.

Jackman and Hudson are cast well together, with the actors creating characters who are ultimately happy people underneath the veneer of a struggling life as underappreciated creatives who just want to make other people happy.

Mike admires Neil Diamond as a musician and artist, and he convinces Claire to join his Neil Diamond Tribute Band, as well as move into his house and get married. Mike is a bit like Jackman rehearsing for a Broadway play, putting a set of songs together that he will enjoy doing and the audience will want to hear.

Jackman has shoulder length hair, and an ear to ear grin that lights up his eyes, like Neil Diamond’s eyes always did on stage.

The film almost stalls as a music video cover shot in the garage, just one step up from Karaoke, in terms of artistry. But the director hints at something else happening on the horizon when the set shifts to Mike’s homelife under the flight path of the Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport.

The always helpful Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam gives Lightning and Thunder their big break by hiring them to open for them in a small venue. Mike and Claire are in awe of being able to perform anywhere other than a bowling alley or a casino.

Hudson shows Claire as head over heals in love with the idea. And the marriage is doing well too, even with the teenage daughters from other relationship having to begrudgingly live together and get along.

If you think struggling as a tribute band with two teenage daughters was difficult, just wait for Brewer’s reversal scenes.

The commercial airliners keep buzzing the subdivision. And then Claire gets run over by a car in her front yard. A great deal of suspense is created worrying for Claire and whether she will survive the accident as the narrative reverses.

The focus suddenly shifts from the rising stardom narrative that the couple were experiencing, as a successful tribute band, to the many struggles people face narrative, in overcoming real life tragedy. The camera follows the individual characters around as their happiness falls apart a bit further and the family cannot seem to overcome the tragedy.

In a couple of scene sequences, the camera almost expects Hugh Jackman to break out into a reprisal of his Wolverine character. But that idea was not meant to be.

Brewer manages to salvage a real movie after all the scenes shooting Jackman and Hudson singing cover songs. In the end, the real life tragedy personifies just how difficult humanity finds success, if indeed humanity ever does find success.