Song Sung Blue
★★★ 1/2
Song Sung Blue is one of those movies where your expectations get flipped almost immediately, and honestly, that ends up being part of its charm.
Going in, I genuinely thought this was a straight-up music biopic about Neil Diamond. Trailer logic, title logic… all signs pointed there. But nope. This isn’t that movie at all. Instead, it’s a love story about a blue-collar couple in Wisconsin who become local celebrities by starting a Neil Diamond tribute band. Completely different premise, and once you settle into that reality, the movie really starts to work.
It also makes total sense why this was released during the holidays. While music plays a huge role (and yes, the film unapologetically uses Diamond’s songs to stir up warm feelings), this is really a story about family, resilience and how people get through hard seasons together. Strip away the tribute band angle, and what’s left is a very human, very relatable story about life not going the way you planned and figuring out how to keep going anyway.
The movie is undeniably entertaining, though it does take some surprisingly dark turns that I wasn’t expecting at all. And honestly? The less you know about where the story goes, the better. It zigzags in ways that feel both melodramatic and oddly compelling, keeping you invested even when it veers into familiar territory.
Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson are both excellent, but Hudson is the real standout here. She’s glowing, magnetic and deeply affecting. Her character requires a tricky balancing act—someone with a huge, infectious personality who then has to show what happens when life slowly crushes that spirit, and how it finds its way back. Hudson pulls it off beautifully, and frankly, her performance exceeds the material at times. She’s riveting in a way that keeps the movie grounded, even when the plot leans hard into sentimentality.
Is the film a bit cookie-cutter? Absolutely. Is it melodramatic? Without question. But it’s also wildly watchable, partly because you never quite know where it’s headed. Underneath it all, the movie is doing three simple things really well:
Celebrating the power of music
Reminding us that life—big or small—is what you make of it
Emphasizing how much the people around you matter when things get tough
Calling it a “feel-good movie of the year” might sound cliché, but it’s also kind of unavoidable. With the upbeat spirit of Neil Diamond’s music mixed with an underdog story, director Craig Brewer pulls together something that genuinely plays for all audiences. My in-laws and wife enjoyed it. Our kids enjoyed it. That kind of across-the-board appeal is harder to pull off than it looks.
The story is based on a documentary, which makes some of the more unbelievable moments even more surprising. I’m not entirely sure how true-to-life every beat is, but the emotional core rings true. You don’t need to have a tribute band, or even a musical bone in your body, for this to resonate. Anyone who’s ever chased a creative passion while trying to balance family, responsibility and real life will likely see a piece of themselves here.
It’s far from a perfect film, but Song Sung Blue knows exactly what it wants to be: warm, crowd-pleasing, occasionally messy and full of heart. And sometimes, that’s more than enough.
