An unapologetic and effective tearjerker

PLOT: Mike (Hugh Jackman) and Claire (Kate Hudson) are two lonely, middle-aged part-time musicians who meet while working as impersonators. The two decide to become a team called Lightning and Thunder, redesigning their act to become the ultimate Neil Diamond tribute, developing a huge cult following and a relationship on the road. However, tragedy strikes, threatening to derail them just as their dreams start to come true.

REVIEW: Song Sung Blue is such a crazy story that you know it has to be true—who could ever dream it up? There really was a Lightning and Thunder, and they were pretty damn good, with a documentary chronicling their careers released a few years ago (you can watch it on YouTube). While the movie takes several Hollywood liberties, particularly in the overly artificial-feeling climax, some of the crazier bits taken from their lives—such as the fact that they were once popular enough to open for Eddie Vedder, who played with them onstage—are legit. And Craig Brewer, working with a well-cast Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson as the eponymous Lightning and Thunder, pays a lovely tribute to this working-class act, who never let the shadow of tragedy that followed them take them away from doing what they loved.

Of course, your like or dislike of Song Sung Blue likely depends on your love of Neil Diamond, with the movie serving as a kind of jukebox musical built around his biggest hits. I happen to be a fan, so I fell pretty hard for Song Sung Blue, although it didn’t hurt that I have something of a taste for melodrama and have always been a sucker for a tearjerker.

Both Jackman and Hudson are at their best in roles that fit them like one of Diamond’s sequinned jumpsuits. Jackman has made no secret of his preference for musical roles, and this must have been a dream for him—being able to juggle drama and sing a bunch of tunes as the tortured-but-upbeat Mike, aka Lightning. A Vietnam vet and a recovering alcoholic, he clings to the Diamond songs that got him through the worst times, but only finds a way forward when he meets Hudson’s Claire, aka Thunder, who encourages him to start a band she eventually sings backup in. With her having two kids and him having one, they start a rather harmonious blended family before tragedy begins to strike—over and over—with the pair barely getting a break from the horrible luck that follows them.

What makes Song Sung Blue so moving is that Brewer, who previously directed two other great movies about misfits trying to make art—Hustle & Flow and Dolemite Is My Name—never makes it downbeat. Rather, he invites us to find joy in the small victories won by Mike and Claire, the biggest of which is the love they find for each other. The movie shares in their joy when the act works, or when the blended family fits so well together, with Mike and Claire’s daughters (played by singer King Princess and Hudson Hensley) immediately becoming confidants and friends. Mike and Claire, while certainly outsiders to some extent, are presented as warm people who make friends everywhere they go: Michael Imperioli as a Buddy Holly impersonator who joins the band; Mustafa Shakir as Sex Machine, a James Brown impersonator; James Belushi as their manager; Fisher Stevens as Mike’s best friend and dentist; and so on. As in his other movies, Brewer shows how people like this can put together huge surrogate families that always have each other’s backs—even if fate constantly threatens to take as much away from them as it can, often without mercy.

Of course, early reviews of Song Sung Blue are mixed, with many calling it overly sentimental. We live in a cynical time, and this isn’t a movie for cynics. While I do think Brewer gets carried away in the climax, where he goes for an almost operatic finish, for much of the running time Song Sung Blue is both an effective tearjerker and a toe-tapping musical. If you want to see a movie that just wants to put a smile on your face.