‘Song Sung Blue: Song for Two’: Soft Karaoke Epic in Honor of Neil Diamond | Cinema: premieres and opinions | EUROtoday

Based on the lifetime of Mike and Claire Sardina, a few Milwaukee performers who made a residing with a Neil Diamond tribute present, Song Sung Blue: music for 2 It is a hybrid between musical cinema and after-dinner drama with a papier-mâché epic that shortly falls into oblivion.

Written and directed by Craig Brewer, identified for pointless sequels to fashionable 80s motion pictures like Footloose y The prince of Zamunda, The recycling this time is that of a 2008 documentary that coated the adventures of Lightning & Thunder, the duo of Mike and Claire Sardina. And definitely the story is curious: how a few atypical performers who make a residing in karaoke and impersonator reveals discover their very own voice in Neil Diamond’s songbook.

But Song Sung Blue It is above all a narrative of enchancment that begins at a gathering of Alcoholics Anonymous, through which Mike/Lightning (Hugh Jackman) celebrates his twentieth yr sober. The movie is a car for the Australian actor to shine and, above all, for Kate Hudson, within the position of Claire/Thunder. The effort of each is diluted, nevertheless, in a slipshod and characterless ensemble through which the private drama and the musical journey don’t fairly join.

That musical half could be essentially the most fascinating. Thanks to their tribute present to Neil Diamond, the Sardinas ended up opening for Pearl Jam. The couple have been regulars on the Wisconsin State Fair and there, in 1995, Eddie Vedder invited them to carry out on the Marcus Amphitheater in Milwaukee. As the movie states, Vedder even joined them to sing the Neil Diamond theme Forever in Blue Jeans.

But metamusical concepts (the revival nineties of Diamond’s melodic universe, the seek for one’s personal voice in that of one other, the universe of tribute reveals or imitators as new methods of exploring the biopic) don’t appear to curiosity Craig Brewer as a lot as the tasteless household story and self-improvement, whose stunning twists pile up on the floor.

Song Sung Blue Thus, it stays a canned epic that has its finest asset in Kate Hudson’s efficiency. Jackman suffers from a considerably false characterization, though he enjoys singing Soolaimon, that was by no means among the many hits from the Neil Diamond songbook, however which the Sardinas was their emblem, regardless of how a lot the viewers (additionally that of this movie) requested them for different songs.