{"id":13696,"date":"2025-12-27T15:35:30","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T20:35:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=13696"},"modified":"2026-01-17T20:57:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T01:57:28","slug":"song-sung-blue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/12\/27\/song-sung-blue\/","title":{"rendered":"Song Sung Blue"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Song Sung Blue<\/strong> (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Focus\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 133 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (thematic material, some strong language, some sexual material, brief drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Craig Brewer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Craig Brewer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Scott Bomar\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Amy Vincent\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 25, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Hugh Jackman, Kate Hudson, Ella Anderson, Hudson Hensley, King Princess, Michael Imperioli, Fisher Stevens, Jim Belushi, Mustafa Shakir, John Beckwith, Jayson Warner Smith, Cecelia Riddett, Sean Allan Krill, Jim Conroy, Kena Anae, Darius Rose, Shyaporn Theerakulstit, Chacha Tahng, Faye Tamasa, Darius de Haas, Timothy Oliver Reid, Charles E. Wallace, Charles H. Gray Jr., Carey Van Driest.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ****<\/p>\n

\u00a0I am a huge Neil Diamond fan. I\u2019ve seen him in concert twice. I unabashedly love The Jazz Singer (1980), his one and only starring role in a feature film. \u201cSweet Caroline\u201d is my go-to karaoke song.\u00a0 If I had a better singing voice, I\u2019d do \u201cHello Again\u201d. I think he\u2019s great.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Hugh Jackman (The Greatest Showman) does NOT play Neil Diamond in the musical biopic Song Sung Blue<\/strong>. He plays a \u201cNeil Diamond interpreter\u201d (NOT an impersonator) who performs alongside his wife (Hudson, Almost Famous) in a Milwaukee-based ND tribute band. The duo, Mike and Claire off-stage, goes by \u201cLightning & Thunder\u201d. He sings Neil\u2019s hits; she plays keyboard and provides back-up vocals. They\u2019re a real-life act. They actually opened for Pearl Jam back in \u201995.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Written and directed by Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow), Song Sung Blue<\/strong> tells the story of how Lightning & Thunder came to be. Mike, a recovering alcoholic celebrating 20 years of sobriety, first meets Claire at a state fair show. The hairdresser by day\/Patsy Cline impersonator by night is immediately intrigued by Mike. She goes to one of his gigs at a bar and they instantly connect. It\u2019s isn\u2019t long before they\u2019re making beautiful music together, both figuratively and literally.<\/p>\n

\u00a0They decide to put an act together, one they call a \u201cNeil Diamond experience\u201d. They\u2019re joined on stage by some musician friends including Mark (Imperioli, Goodfellas), a Buddy Holly impersonator looking to try other things. They get off to a rocky start thanks to a misunderstanding on the part of their manager, tour bus driver Tom D\u2019Amato (Belushi, The Principal). It turns out bikers do NOT like ND. After that, they really take off, playing gigs all over the place. Everything is looking up until the inevitable occurs. That\u2019s right, a tragedy that threatens to put an end to Lightning & Thunder.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Song Sung Blue <\/strong>is on my top 10 of 2025 list. It is an outstanding film in every respect. The music, of course, is terrific. Although cinemas generally frown on it, I was singing along to some of the ND songs performed flawlessly by Jackman. Yes, I even (quietly) did the \u201cBA! BA! BA!\u201d and \u201cSO GOOD!\u201d during \u201cSweet Caroline\u201d. I am a little disappointed he didn\u2019t do anything from The Jazz Singer, but that\u2019s my only complaint about this wonderful movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Obviously, Song Sung Blue<\/strong> is about more than the music. It\u2019s a drama about two flawed people dealing with the curve balls life throws at them. I guess it\u2019s not spoiling anything to tell you that Claire gets maimed when an out-of-control car hits her outside her house. It\u2019s in the trailer. The accident leaves her disabled, depressed and addicted to painkillers. It\u2019s hard to watch Claire go through this. It\u2019s even harder watching Mike and their kids go through it. Thankfully, Brewer doesn\u2019t let it weigh things down too much. It\u2019s just the right amount of drama. He injects humor into the proceedings as well. In a scene that feels more like something out of a comedy, he convinces Claire\u2019s teenage daughter Rachel (Anderson, The Boss) to jump start his heart with a defibrillator when he has an episode at the hospital after Claire\u2019s accident. It feels a little out of place, but life can be like that.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Hudson deserves an Oscar nomination for her affecting performance as Claire. She garners sympathy without making her an object of pity. When she finally breaks down, it hits hard. I haven\u2019t seen Kate this great since Almost Famous (can you believe it\u2019s been 25 years?). Jackman is similarly great as Mike, a man who clearly loves the spotlight as long as it\u2019s on his own terms. He\u2019s not content to just impersonate other singers; he wants to make it his own. He\u2019s not arrogant about it either. Deep down, he struggles to stay sober in the face of adversity while dealing with his own health issues.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The two leads, who share perfect chemistry, don\u2019t carry the load alone. They have ample assistance from a solid supporting cast that also includes Fisher Stevens (Short Circuit 1 & 2) as Mike\u2019s agent and dentist and singer-songwriter King Princess (Nine Perfect Strangers) as Mike\u2019s daughter Angelina. It\u2019s nice to see Jim Belushi again; it\u2019s been a while. Mustafa Shakir (Luke Cage) lends comic relief as a James Brown impersonator. He does it better than Eddie Murphy on SNL.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I absolutely LOVE Song Sung Blue<\/strong>. It\u2019s such a great movie. It\u2019s compelling all the way through. It\u2019ll have you singing and tearing up. I fully intend to see it again, this time with my darling wife. It\u2019s one of the year\u2019s most entertaining movies.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Song Sung Blue (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Focus\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 133 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (thematic material, some strong language, some sexual material, brief drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Craig Brewer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Craig Brewer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Scott Bomar\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Amy Vincent\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 25, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Hugh Jackman, Kate Hudson, Ella Anderson, Hudson Hensley, King Princess, Michael Imperioli, Fisher Stevens, Jim […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13716,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Song-Sung-Blue-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13696"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13717,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13696\/revisions\/13717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}