Song Sung Blue: Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson are the "soulmates" of Neil Diamond's Midwest

Viewed with cynical eyes, the premise of Song Sung Blue seems capable of pushing the bar of Hollywood desperation to a new record level: after covering more or less all the pop and rock stars we remember with a dedicated biographical film (we'll soon see Michael Jackson, and we'll surely get to George Michael eventually), Craig Brewer's film focuses on "impersonators," or cover bands, in other words, those who perform in the guise and with the repertoire of someone else. However, just a few minutes into Song Sung Blue, a film that opens with the words "based on a true love story," are enough to dispel this doubt.

After the "original" rock stars, Song Sung Blue tells the story of a tribute band

Brewer's approach, from a director who has a predilection for stories of musicians deeply immersed in their urban realities but distant from the upper echelons of the music industry, is not a desperate move but an operation that is perhaps sometimes a little naive, but never lacking in sentiment. Song Sung Blue is truly made with a heart this big, which is not a bad thing for a release so close to the holidays. The sincere passion with which the operation is carried out comes from afar; from the eponymous 2008 documentary directed by Greg Kohs, a director who followed the real Mike and Claire Sardina for years, telling their incredible musical and human story. If, when watching Song Sung Blue, you have any doubt that there might be some exaggeration compared to the (sometimes very tragic) events that literally befall the couple, know that the truth is even more dramatic and incredible than what is fictionalized and softened by the film.

Based on a true love story

A film that, despite dealing with many downfalls of its protagonists, almost always manages not to descend into melodrama and sadness. Song Sung Blue tells the story of two people united by the physiological need to make music who meet after a life of misfortunes and tragedies from which they have already recovered multiple times. Hugh Jackman is a Vietnam veteran who has emerged from a complicated divorce and alcoholism, making a living as a singer-impersonator at village festivals and clubs. Kate Hudson's Claire has already recovered from grief and depression with her head held high, knowing she wants to make music, even if only in her spare time, as a side job.

The film also and above all tells of a mid-journey love, when one is already adult, wounded, tested by what has happened before, and one chooses with awareness, with one's physical limitations and imperfect past experiences. Hudson and Jackman credibly bring this feeling to the big screen, here and there showing some strategic wrinkles or belly rolls for the cause (for an Oscar? In case of defections from the big favorites, Hudson with her perfect Midwestern accent could really consider it), bringing the enthusiasm and carefree spirit of an America far from the big cities we are usually told about.

An ode to the spirit of the American Midwest

In its most beautiful pages, Song Sung Blue is a long story spanning the 1980s and 1990s of an honest, enthusiastic, sometimes unconventional working class that fully embodies the spirit of the American Midwest. So much so that the film is doing very well in the areas where it is set (but not filmed), testifying to that sense of community far from the major circuits of music and entertainment, which transforms a Neil Diamond cover band into a true local legend.

Craig Brewer carries out the operation on the wave of sentiment, but without ever indulging in nostalgia or moralism, which makes Song Sung Blue even a little contagious in its enthusiasm. It is precisely the equivalent of a Neil Diamond song - whose repertoire is here told in filigree, through what it represents for the people who go to hear his cover band - considered a bit outdated and cloying in its explicitly romantic sentiment, but which, after a couple of listens, gets stuck in your head and wins you over.

Although not entirely immune to some shrewd sequences designed to allow its protagonists to present themselves as credible candidates for awards season, Song Sung Blue has a sincere enthusiasm in portraying its protagonists in all their often very painful humanity. For the close relationship that the narrative weaves between the love story of the two protagonists and their musical ambition, I couldn't help but think of the 2012 Belgian film The Broken Circle Breakdown, however, transposed not only to the latitudes but also to the American national spirit. The pain of existence and grief is there, but the outcome of the two films, starting from fairly similar premises, is distant precisely because it is filtered through the national characteristics that generated the two films.

In its old-fashioned American way, Song Sung Blue perhaps doesn't have the ambition to be as deep and complex as other biopics of "original artists" seen recently, but it also lacks their arrogance or pretentiousness. It belongs to a way of telling stories about the United States that is now perceived as outdated: one that approaches its subject of investigation with the same optimistic and somewhat naive approach as its subject, but in the right moments, Song Sung Blue doesn't gloss over the tears, the pain, the flaws of its protagonists. It may not be scathing cinéma vérité, but it's an honest film, and that's really not insignificant, especially these days.