Song Sung Blue
★ ★ ★
Song Sung Blue is based on real-life couple Mike and Claire Sardina, who became a sensation in Milwaukee as Neil Diamond interpreters. No, not impersonators—interpreters. It’s an important distinction in this film, because Mike reveres Diamond so much that he doesn’t want to be a sideshow distraction using his name. Movies typically take a lot of dramatic exaggeration when it comes to true stories. Here, it is largely accurate to the real-life couple’s story.
Mike (Hugh Jackman) is an auto mechanic by trade and music cover artist by night. His manager is his dentist, Dr. Dave Watson (Fisher Stevens), who gets him local gigs. Mike’s stage name is Lightning. Dave has a prosthetic tooth made for him with a faint lightning bolt embedded within.
At least it wasn’t gold.
Garage band practice
© 2025 Focus Features
When we meet Mike, he’s 20 years sober. The night he meets Claire (Kate Hudson) at a concert where they’re both performing, he tells her it’s his birthday. Later he clarifies—it’s his sober birthday.
Mike and Claire hit it off right away and start talking about music and their future in it. Eventually they both land on creating an act centered on Diamond’s music—a celebration rather than a cover. An interpretation. “You can’t have Lightning without Thunder,” Mike says. And Claire becomes Thunder.
Lightning and Thunder are born.
Lightning and Thunder walk to a gig with the band
© 2025 Focus Features
As soon as the name is settled, they kiss and their romance is born. They gather friends and former bandmates to join their act. This isn’t just a couple of people on stage. This is a full-on act – brass section and all. It isn’t long before they’re locally famous and one of the most sought-after groups in Milwaukee.
One of the best performances comes from Jim Belushi as Tom D’Amato. Tom becomes part of the team because he can help the group book gigs in local casinos, in addition to running a tour bus that takes folks from their independent living communities to play slot machines. Belushi plays the role with great energy and enthusiasm, like a grandpa who discovered a late-life career in promoting his grandkid’s garage band.
To Jackman’s credit, he doesn’t play Mike’s character as a guy trying to be Diamond. He plays Mike as true to real life as possible. It’s clear Jackman understood the assignment—Mike doesn’t want to be Diamond. He wants to artistically pay homage.
Likewise, Hudson is charming as Claire. She might be Thunder, but their chemistry is electric—both on stage and in the most dramatic scenes. It’s easy to see that she’s the one who holds the band together.
Kate Hudson as Claire and Hugh Jackman as Mike
© 2025 Focus Features
The filmmakers are content to keep the story focused on the timeline of Lightning and Thunder, in addition to a tragic event that threatens to tear the group apart and fracture Mike and Claire’s marriage. While the drama is there, the emotional undertones lack seriously devastating depth. It’s moments like this where we want a deep cut. We want to feel the emotional gut-punch that threatens to tear everyone apart.
Because when they work through it, we celebrate it all the more—as if we’ve been right there with them the whole time.
Still, this movie has a lot of heart and several great moments—enough to make it a good movie. It was good enough that I played Neil Diamond songs on random during my drive home. Wouldn’t you know, the first song that played was Sweet Caroline.
