Anybody who loves to watch films knows all too well that they tend to finish with very happy endings. “And they all lived happily ever after – the end”. While that approach is all very well and good with these types of light-hearted movies, I would argue that it doesn’t bode well at all if you’re attempting to tell a much more realistic and down-to-earth story that anybody can relate to.
Just a few weeks ago, I went along to the Macroberts Arts Centre to see a screening titled: ‘Song Sung Blue’. It is a 2025 American biographical musical drama film written, co-produced, and directed by Craig Brewer, and based on the 2008 documentary film of the same name by Greg Kohs. I should warn you first, though, that this review contains many spoilers of the story that I am about to summarise, so I would urge you not to read on if you don’t want to have this film spoiled for you before you end up watching it.
The story is dominated by the highly eventful personal fortunes of the two protagonists, Claire Stengl-Sardina (Kate Hudson) and Michael Henry “Lightning” Sardinia (Hugh Jackman). As a married couple, the pair form their own Neil Diamond tribute band called Lightning and Thunder and perform his songs as a duo throughout the 1980s and 1990s, as a newly married couple.
But don’t think for one second that this true story was just another one of those fairy tales with everything going swimmingly; I vividly remember watching some pretty gnarly tragedies in the more than two hours that this film went on for. For instance, Mike Sardinia clearly struggled to get on with his two step-children, Rachel and Dana, at the beginning of the time that he spent with Claire’s biological children.
However, the devastation that I would like to pay particular attention to is the incident of dangerous driving that resulted in Claire being run over by a car that swerved right off the road. At the time, she was planting flowers in the garden in front of their house with her back turned to the vehicle.
It causes Claire to lose her left leg below the knee after a chaotic hospital operation that results in Mike becoming rendered unconscious by a heart attack, forcing Rachel to resuscitate her stepfather and save his life. Claire subsequently experiences a deterioration to her mental health, and her pain medications cause her anger, depression, and pain.
She and Mike bitterly fall out after this deep paranoia causes Claire to falsely assume that her husband is cheating on her, resulting in the rest of the family sending her away to live in a mental hospital to receive psychiatric help.
Thanks to all this pandemonium, nobody has noticed that Rachel is already four months pregnant. Without the assistance of the unborn baby’s father, she is already planning to give it away to a couple who have been unable to conceive. This is what then happens after Claire recovers from her sickness and injury, and she is finally able to return home in time for Christmas in 1999.
Nevertheless, I would still like to heavily emphasise that any hope of seeing a happy ending just blatantly had cold water poured upon it. Lightning and Thunder can perform their tribute acts excellently once again after Claire recovers physically and both she and Mike recover mentally and emotionally.
Despite this, though, their headlining gig at the Ritz in Milwaukee ends abysmally, on the same night that Neil Diamond is playing his own show nearby and would allegedly like to meet them in person at last. After their sold-out concert turns out to be a massive success, Mike dies of another heart attack while he is still sitting down in the back of the car and is visibly unresponsive to his wife’s cries to come with her.
Personally, I am really pleased that I was able to see a film recently that clearly showcased the harsh realities of what it’s like to live in the midst of all the hardships of modern life in this cruel world. So many people put on a mask when others can see them, in a desperate attempt to prove to them all that everything is going brilliantly in their life, when the hard facts could not be more different.
It is absolutely fantastic that there has recently been a genuinely eye-opening true story that educates our planet all about the everyday struggles that all too many of us must endure behind the scenes of all the glitz and glam that we see on camera. I hope to see more of these sadly unavoidable relatable realities showcased even further in any kind of thought-provoking cinema that is ever released in the future.
Featured image credits – “Left: Mike and Claire Sardina, also known as Neil Diamond tribute band Lightning & Thunder, pose in their performance attire. Photo by Francis Ford. Photo courtesy of the Sardina Family.” “Right: Actors Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson with director Craig Brewer on the set of SONG SUNG BLUE. Sarah Shatz/Focus Features © 2025 All Rights Reserved.”