Neil Diamond’s a certain kind of schmaltz; inspirational Hollywood awards-bait is another kind of schmaltz. If you put those two together, what will you get? Schmaltz. And while Song Sung Blue doesn’t rank up there with the highlights of Neil’s sequined catalog, it’s a hell of a lot better than the dregs of maudlin Oscar bilge. If you’re rating on a scale from “You Don’t Buy Me Flowers” to Hillbilly Elegy, we’re a lot closer to the former than the latter, thank the deity of your choice, be they shilohs or crackling rosies.
As you’d expect in a Hollywood exercise like this, the based-on-real-life story of Mike and Claire Sardina is improbably larded with hope, inspiration and heartbreak. Mike (Hugh Jackman) and Claire (Kate Hudson) meet at a Milwaukee music-impersonator concert where Claire’s dressed up as Patsy and Mike refuses at the last moment to dress up as Don Ho. He wants to be Neil Diamond—and soon he and Claire have become the Neil Diamond tribute band Lightning and Thunder. True love, marriage, opening for Pearl Jam, and a shocking array of horrific health problems swiftly follow.
This is the schmaltz you expect. Director Craig Brewer has a couple “Bom bom bom!”s in his pocket though. The first of these is the charisma and chemistry of his stars. Everyone knows that Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson can light up a screen, but even going in prepared, the wattage is blinding. Jackman as a schlubby recovering alcoholic with a heart of gold performing a swaggering, swinging Neil Diamond impersonation for the mirror in his underwear is equal parts ridiculous and ridiculously sexy; Hudson as Claire in her brunette Patsy Cline wig assuring Mike that she’s fact a blonde (“Oh, boy, am I!”) just about sets the screen on fire. If someone with a suit and checkbook isn’t making plans to put them in all the romcoms, then studio executives are even stupider than I thought.
The other thing Brewer has going for him is the music. As Mike/Lightning keeps insisting, Diamond’s a wonderfully inventive songwriter, whose tunes fit into intimate settings and giant bombastic ridiculousness with equal verve. For fans, Neil’s the best interpreter of his own material, but Jackman’s rough and ready baritone is a great fit for the material, as is Hudson’s velvet, gospel-tinged belting. The arrangements by Daiana Azar and Guille Porro are uniformly fantastic. Their first practice session with just guitar and piano harmonizing on “Cherry, Cherry” is ecstatic—as for that matter is the climactic concert with full gospel choir. Even the karaoke version of “I Am…I Said” at the Thai restaurant where Mike and the owner commiserate about their lost loves is perfect, and very Neil. I want the soundtrack.
There are other highlights. Ella Anderson has a lovely turn as Claire’s daughter, whose goes from eye-rolling at Mike to becoming his apprentice car mechanic. And the multi-racial band and cast is a welcome tribute to a notably immigrant-celebrating musician.
As for the downsides—the timeline for rise to stardom, setbacks, major physical therapy, comeback, and rise to stardom is compressed into only a couple of years, and while I know that a true-to-life Hollywood film is not true-to-life, it still strained credulity. And for all its virtues the film never stops being the kind of schmaltz it is; tears of happiness and tears of joy are jerked with a distinct lack of subtlety.
There’s also a lot of Neil Diamond music, which is a feature as far as I’m concerned, but if his catalog makes you wince, this isn’t the film for you. If you love Neil and can stand Oscar-bait, though, Jackman, Hudson, and Brewer, Song Sung Blue will make you a (qualified) believer.