In Song Sung Blue, Kate Hudson is better than she’s been in decades

The 2008 documentary on which the new musical biopic Song Sung Blue is based might not have got much traction had one of its stars – Mike Sardina, the charismatic Neil Diamond tribute singer from Milwaukee – not died just as film-maker Greg Kohs was wrapping things up.

The documentary, about Sardina and his wife Claire, two halves of the band Lightning & Thunder, had been eight years in the making and was in its final edit when Sardina died suddenly from a head injury. Kohs hadn’t even yet got permission to use Diamond’s music, but the tragic and unexpected real-life ending gave the film a sad buzz, propelling it onto the festival circuit and resulting 17 years later in this feature film.

Although Mike’s death is foreshadowed throughout via the heart problems he tries to hide from his family, the film’s greatest strength is not actually its tear-jerker of an ending, but its attempts to resist the tragic arc that biopics typically tend towards. Song Sung Blue’s best moments are when it focuses on its beautifully ordinary love story. Mike (Hugh Jackman), an army veteran, car mechanic, ageing divorced dad and passionate amateur performer, meets single mum Claire (Kate Hudson, in her best form since her Oscar-nominated debut in 2000’s Almost Famous) at an impersonators gig, where she is dolled up as Patsy Cline. 

There’s a spark from the outset. “You’re a blonde?” he asks as she twirls a brunette wig around her finger. “Oh boy, am I!” she struts off sexily. Pretty soon, they’re hitched and booking wildly popular gigs across Wisconsin as Lightning & Thunder, eventually even opening for Pearl Jam.

As Mike, Jackman is predictably cheery and alluring, although arguably a little more Jackman than anything else. It’s Hudson (already nominated for a Best Actress Golden Globe) who really shines here. That megawatt smile that made her Noughties rom coms so successful is still on full display, but it’s accompanied by a stubbornness that helps Claire seem more complicated and real than anything Hudson has done before (as well as a very convincing Minnesotan accent).

Claire is meant to be a troubled character – and when she loses her foot in an unbelievably random car crash (which did really happen, sadly) halfway through the film, Hudson brings that trauma to the fore successfully. Claire isn’t an emotional talker like Mike, who has been sharing sob stories at AA for years. Vulnerable and lost, she loses her pizzazz and with it her career.

But the luminosity that Hudson lends Claire has an elastic quality: this is a character who can bounce back. There’s one wonderful scene where Mike loses his cool after her accident, and the hug his wife gives him is one of total understanding, the kind of wordless exchange that ordinary, loving long-term couples have. It’s a brilliantly mature performance from Hudson.

Also, she can really sing (as can Jackson, AKA The Greatest Showman). The gigs are full of vitality and fun, as the pair put their own special spin on Sweet Caroline (there is a lot of ecstatic “baw baw baaaauuuum-ing”) and other less famous tracks too, including the ethereal “Soolaimon”. Director Craig Brewer has form for this sort of thing, following 2005’s Academy Award-winning film Hustle and Flow, which was an uplifting if overly sentimental musical feature.

Off-stage, the film suffers a little from the usual plodding feeling that so often afflicts biopics, hitting us over the head a bit with its highs (professional success, hurray!) and lows (amputation and trauma, oh dear!).

However, all this is always anchored in a relationship that feels very real. It’s a film very much like a good karaoke night: there’s nothing hugely sophisticated about the experience, but it is absolutely jam-packed with joy.