Song Sung Blue
★★★★
(M) 131 minutes
It took me a long time to set aside my preoccupation with Hugh Jackman’s series of bad wigs in Song Sung Blue.
I never quite managed it but after a while, the wigs ceased to matter, upstaged by the mixture of self-deprecation and chutzpah that goes into Jackman’s performance as Mike Sardina, star of a Neil Diamond tribute act he created with his wife and close collaborator in Milwaukee in the 1990s.
Kate Hudson and Hugh Jackman in Song Sung Blue.
Sardina and Claire Stengl came out of the network of small-time gigs that keep live music going in American towns and suburbs, managing to transcend these modest beginnings to fill increasingly larger venues. Their big moment came when Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder became a fan and appeared onstage with them in 1995.
The film’s director, Craig Brewer, calls them “bar-room heroes”, a description which strikes the right chord. When we first meet them, they’re part of the army of part-time performers getting by with their impersonations of rock stars past and present. Claire (Kate Hudson) is doing a Patsy Cline set when Mike introduces himself. He, however, has just decided that he’s done with impersonations. Instead, he’s about to take a great leap into the unknown by trying to be himself.
Claire greets this news with a less radical suggestion. Why doesn’t he leap in a different direction and become a “Neil Diamond interpreter”?
At first, he’s overwhelmed by the idea. He wouldn’t dare. Diamond is one of his idols. She perseveres and after a succession of rehearsals in his garage with Claire playing keyboard and doing the background vocals, they find a rhythm.
From left, Hugh Jackman, Fisher Stevens, Michael Imperioli and Jim Belushi.Credit: AP
Based on a 2008 documentary about the Sardinas and endorsed by Diamond himself, the film rapidly turns into a Neil Diamond fiesta with his biggest hits punctuating the narrative, colouring its emotional tone and marking the milestones in the couple’s turbulent career. At one point, a freak accident puts Claire out of action for months and Mike, a recovering alcoholic traumatised by his wartime experiences in Vietnam, comes close to going under.
But Brewer has no interest in making a weepie. These two are working-class stoics, accustomed to bouncing back from the hard knocks they’ve endured over the years. The only glitz they’ve ever known is the kind sewn into their costumes, yet they possess a shared a sense of optimism. It may be cock-eyed at times, but it also makes them irrepressible.
The film is very much a Hollywood product. The action has been shaped and condensed to pump up the drama, Jackman and Hudson are glamourised versions of the Sardinas, a kind of gilding that is only to be expected. And Brewer and his production team have put a lot of art and effort into keeping the settings grounded in reality.
Mike’s cottage, home to the couple and children from their earlier marriages, is the type to be found in suburbs everywhere with cluttered rooms and a scraggly lawn accommodating a single flower bed. Mike has a propensity for wandering around the house in his underpants while strumming his guitar. The garage features prominently as the couple’s rehearsal studio – once they acquire a backing band, the neighbours are treated to impromptu concerts because it’s too hot to keep the roller door closed.
Rather than being sentimental, it’s a fundamentally good-natured film, paying homage, as Brewer says, to those who find their niche as entertainers beloved by those audiences who get the chance to find them and see what they can do. In the end, those bad wigs could almost be viewed as endearing.
