SONG SUNG BLUE
US, 2008, 85 minutes, Colour.
Mike Sardina, Claire Sardina, Eddie Vedder.
Directed by Greg Kohs.
From 1989 to 2006, a singing duo were a sensation in their native Wisconsin, especially locally in Milwaukee. This is thier story. It has been directed by documentary maker, Greg Kohs, who contacted them and had their permission to be close to them over many years, a great deal of filming their lives, in close-up.
There is an opening caption from a Neil Diamond song about a frog wanting to become a Prince.
The central characters are Mike and Claire Sardina, their stage names, Lightning and Thunder. He had been a Marine in Vietnam, and drug and alcohol problems, but was successful in the AA program and off drink for decades. He had a talent for impersonating Neil Diamond and his singing, something of a lookalike. And at a gig, he encounters Claire, doing impersonation of Country and Western singers like Patsy Cline.
This is the story of their 16 years together, both married before, bonding with the children and Mike becoming something of a father figure. There was tragedy in an accident where Claire was struck by an out-of-control car which crashed into her and their house, a great deal of this film showing the repercussions of the accident, her losing her leg, the prosthetic leg, therapy, as well as the psychological repercussions.
Which means that there is a whole lot of home movie material, audiences getting to know Mike and Claire as well as their children. They were popular over the years in Milwaukee, and a special friendship with Eddie Vedder when they supported him in a Pearl Jam concert.
Mike also had heart trouble and this emerges at the end of the film, his finally dying in 2006.
This documentary then became the base screenplay and story for the feature film, Song Sung Blue, with Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson as the couple, incorporating many of Neal Diamond’s songs.
It is interesting to see a lot of the details on the 2025 film that are taken from the documentary, details of life at home, interactions with the children, such details as Mike wandering around the house singing in his underpants, his dentist-manager inserting a tooth with a lightning bolt sketched on It, financial issues, the birth of the child of Claire’s daughter and its adoption. Hugh Jackman and, especially, Kate Hudson do resemble their counterparts but it is also interesting to see the supporting characters, Dave the dentist manager (very different from Fisher Stevens in the film), manager Tom, who does resemble Jim Belushi in the film.
In watching the 2025 film, audiences realise that it is a polished Hollywood musical drama, the dramatising of characters and events – with the documentary presenting them as they were.
