'Song Sung Blue' Review: A Musical Biopic Held Together By the Two Outstanding Lead Performances
- Dan Bremner
- 2 minutes ago
- 4 min read
By Dan Bremner - December 31, 2025
Outside of knowing a handful of Neil Diamond songs, I’m not exactly well-versed in his catalogue or persona, so I went into Song Sung Blue expecting something light: a sweet, harmless musical rom-com with a fun premise and the charm of Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson to carry it along. What I absolutely wasn’t prepared for was the unhinged emotional rollercoaster this true story becomes. Credit where it’s due, the trailers hide the reality astonishingly well. What starts as breezy, feel-good fluff quickly mutates into something far stranger, darker, and more chaotic than anything suggested by the marketing.
The tonal journey of Song Sung Blue is one of the wildest I’ve experienced in a cinema in years. It opens with the airy optimism of a quirky romance built around the novelty of a Neil Diamond tribute act, then spirals into a harrowing and emotionally brutal family drama with shades of The Iron Claw in how relentless its tragedies become. The tonal whiplash is real: one moment you’re smiling at a warm musical number, the next you’re blindsided by a life-shattering revelation that feels dropped into the script from a completely different film.
Holding all of this together (sometimes barely) are two genuinely outstanding lead performances. Hugh Jackman delivers some of his best work in years, with vocals that capture Diamond’s tone and presence without tipping into parody. It’s a deeply committed performance, raw and emotionally honest, especially during the film’s darker moments. Kate Hudson, meanwhile, is even better. This is easily her strongest turn since Almost Famous, playing Claire with warmth, tragedy, vulnerability, and a devastating turn that gives the film its emotional backbone. Their chemistry is lightning (and thunder) in a bottle, believable, affectionate, and charming even when the film around them falters.
One of the film’s strongest elements is how sincerely it celebrates music, specifically tribute culture. It’s packed with energetic, nostalgic Neil Diamond covers that are performed with so much affection that even casual listeners (like me) get swept up in the sincerity. There’s a joy in the way the film treats creative passion, karaoke culture, and the community around tribute acts. It’s never mocking, it’s genuinely heartfelt, and those moments of musical connection provide the film’s most consistent highs.
At its best, Song Sung Blue strikes a deeply human chord. It’s based on a true story so absurd, sad, hopeful, and downright unbelievable that it almost defies traditional storytelling logic. Addiction, mental health struggles, emotional recovery, and the messy resilience of love all factor into the narrative. And while the film tackles these subjects with sympathy, it also embraces the “stranger than fiction” nature of real life. In the introduction, Jackman himself assured us that everything in the film, even the most insane stuff, actually happened, and that alone makes the viewing experience surreal. Because some of the turns are so shocking you’d swear the writers made them up. It really made me want to check out the documentary of the same name this is based on.
Unfortunately, the film struggles under the weight of everything it tries to juggle. At just over two hours, it feels bloated and overstuffed, with too many subplots, dream sequences, and dramatic diversions competing for attention. Addiction, PTSD, a Juno situation, financial hardship, and relationship breakdowns all get thrown into the mix, but few receive the depth or clarity they deserve. The result is a film that is sincerely emotional, yet often melodramatic in a way that borders on overwrought. The series of unfortunate events this family goes through really does pile up, almost exhaustingly so.
The tonal inconsistency becomes one of its biggest flaws, yet, most fascinating features. Some scenes feel like they belong in a warm-hearted musical romance, while others feel ripped from a punishing awards-bait family tragedy. These abrupt shifts can be baffling, making the film sometimes feel like a collage of genres rather than a cohesive whole. Several tragic moments arrive with such bizarre timing that they feel unintentionally comedic, evoking the same tonal misfires that plagued films like Collateral Beauty or certain Hallmark dramas that attempt seriousness without the structural foundation to support it.
Still, there is something undeniably watchable about the chaos of Song Sung Blue. The sincerity of the performances, the affection for music, and the sheer emotional commitment of Jackman and Hudson keep the film afloat even at its messiest. And the knowledge that every wild twist actually happened only adds to its strange allure. I genuinely recommend going in as blind as possible, because nothing (truly nothing) can prepare you for how unexpectedly insane some of these turns are. I don't think anyone in my screening was prepared for a scene involving Jackman in a hospital room. That is all I'll say, as you need to see it to believe it.
Song Sung Blue is a messy, overstuffed, tonally schizophrenic musical biopic held together almost entirely by two phenomenal performances and an earnest heart. Flawed but fascinating, unhinged yet sincere, this is a film I admired more in pieces than as a whole, but one I won’t be forgetting anytime soon. Truly as unhinged, but watchable as cinema can sometimes be.
'Song Sung Blue' releases in UK cinemas January 1, 2026.
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