Here’s the thing about Song Sung Blue: it starts out as a cuddly holiday crowd-pleaser and then pulls the rug so hard it leaves skid marks. I don’t mean a little tonal wobble. I mean a full-on genre swerve that never quite finds its way back.
The setup: tribute-band romance that looks like a slam dunk
Craig Brewer’s movie opens like a cozy, low-stakes underdog story about a Neil Diamond tribute act — Lightning & Thunder — that becomes a local sensation. Hugh Jackman plays Mike 'Lightning' Sardina, Kate Hudson is Claire 'Thunder' Stengl (soon Sardina), and yes, the wigs are glorious. They belt out Forever in Blue Jeans with zero irony, fall for performing and for each other, and you settle in expecting the classic biopic cycle: rise, stumble, comeback. It feels sweet, conventional, and very 'take your parents over the holidays'.
The supporting bench is fun too: Jim Belushi pops up as Tom D'Amato, Michael Imperioli as Mark Shurilla, King Princess as Angelina, and Ella Anderson as Claire’s daughter Rachel. On paper, you can see the charming awards-season pitch from across the room.
Then the floor drops out
The movie detonates its own vibe with a violent car crash that leaves Claire in the hospital and, ultimately, without a leg. It’s staged to shock — you feel the panic as Mike and their kids wait, not knowing how bad it is. And then Mike himself has a cardiac episode, and Rachel literally jolts him back with a conveniently placed defibrillator. It’s a lot, fast.
Brewer leans into the disorientation, cutting from hospital haze to Claire waking up at home as if the whole thing might have been a dream — until it very much isn’t. From there, the film pivots hard: Claire’s depression takes center stage, and Mike shifts from blissed-out dreamer to frazzled provider. The gentle, campy sheen of the opening evaporates.
- A teenage pregnancy lands in their lap
- Another car accident follows
- A full-on nervous breakdown
- An admission to a mental institution
- And yes, a third car accident
By the time the final crisis shows up at their front door, it plays less like drama and more like a grim running gag — which would be cruel if it were intentional. It isn’t. The movie is based on the real lives of Mike and Claire Sardina, and it is wild that they survived all of this. But onscreen, the accumulation doesn’t feel uplifting so much as numbing.
There are genuine, grounded beats buried in the chaos: Mike and Rachel calmly mapping out a plan for the pregnancy; the big comeback show they stage on the same night the actual Neil Diamond is in town, as deliberate counterprogramming. Those moments land — but the early, playful camp still hangs in the air, softening their impact when the film needs steel.
Performances caught in the crossfire
Jackman and Hudson have easy, sweet chemistry, but it sometimes feels like they’re acting in two different movies. Jackman thrives in the lighter register — think the showman charisma of, well, The Greatest Showman and his New York concert residency — and while he hits some solid dramatic notes, the tonal zigzags never let him settle. Hudson shoulders most of the heavy lift; she’s convincing as someone whose relentless positivity is a mask for a much messier interior, and she often powers through the tonal fog by sheer force.
So, should you see it?
Depends on what you want out of it. If you’re here for Neil Diamond feels, you won’t walk away empty-handed — yes, you’ll get Sweet Caroline, and the music does what it does. But be ready for a deliberate mood swerve the film never quite earns. It reads like a reach for gravitas that doesn’t fully connect, and the sincere intent to celebrate Lightning & Thunder’s perseverance doesn’t cancel out the uneasy, borderline exploitative aftertaste.
Song Sung Blue, from Focus Features, opens in theaters on December 25.