Some people worship at the feet of Martin Scorcese. Or Stephen Spielberg. Or maybe the kids now love Jordan Peele or Christopher Nolan. Craig Brewer has openly said Footloose was the movie that made him want to be a filmmaker. It shows; he fixed the problems with the first one and made a better version in 2011. I mean it, watch this or this. That infectious energy has translated to most of his filmmography, including his latest about a Neil Diamond tribute band from Milwaukee.
Thunder & Lightning took the Midwest by storm in the 1980s and 1990s. It wasn’t all Summerfest glory though. Mike Sardina (Hugh Jackman) starts the movie on his 20th sober anniversary, but creatively in a rut with his music and performing. But after seeing Claire Stengl (Kate Hudson) perform as Patsy Cline at the Wisconsin County Fair, creative fireworks erupted. The two decide their best shot is building their acts around Neil Diamond’s songs since Mike looks like him, convincing Mike’s manager/dentist (Fisher Stevens) and financier/casino trolley driver (Jim Belushi) to give the pair a shot. This sends the duo into a storm that rolled quick and fast through Milwaukee/Chicago, at the surprise to Mike, Claire, Mike’s daughter Angelina (King Princess), and Claire’s daughter Rachel (Ella Anderson) and son Dayna (Hudson Hensley).
The last several music biopics are built around the biggest artists on the planet. Song Sung Blue downsizes the stakes a hundred fold by making a movie about Thunder & Lightning. This serves two purposes: 1) it immediately makes the music biopic beats funnier, like when you’re financing your gigs via a casino trolley driver, and 2) it keeps our characters tethered to reality. This isn’t some music god like Freddie Mercury performing in front of hundreds of thousands at Wembley. It’s Mike and Claire Sardina of Wisconsin doing Neil Diamond interpretation through the Milwaukee/Chicago music bar scene. Two struggling divorcees trying to make a little money for their families while trying to fulfill a realistic dream of performing for people. Craig Brewer’s film reminds us that the dreams of the Sardina’s are no less important than the ones Elton John had, and makes beautiful Neil Diamond interpretations on moderately sized locales that excite the audience like they’re at the best karaoke bar on the planet.
And even though the falls from grace are higher for the bigger musicians, that doesn’t make Thunder & Lightning’s struggles any less so. In fact, when you come from little, and it gets taken away, it hurts your heart even more so. When Kate Hudson utters “I was so close,” you heart bursts into millions of pieces, cause she and the audience know people like Claire usually only get one shot, and then it’s over. What happens to the two of them is…dark, but also weirdly funny, which Brewer then starts tonally swerving the movie back and forth in between. You’re gonna get some whiplash as Song Sung Blue works its way to the big finale, but Brewer is so good at staging big fun sequences that you’ll shrug away loose plot mechanics to get to the latest Neil Diamond gem.
Maybe the biggest win for Song Sung Blue is the rest of Neil Diamond’s discography. It’s not just Sweet Caroline. There’s lots of great stuff there. And if an hour and a half movie of Neil Diamond interpretation is too much for you, I recommend Will Ferrell’s 4 minute masterpiece detailing how his biggest hits were written. Sorry Hugh, you’re runner up on Diamond interpreters.