SONG SUNG BLUE
NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Marianya
The movie opens on Mike Sardina (Hugh Jackman) introducing himself at an AA meeting, he has been sober for 20 years and it is his Sober-Anniversary. Every Sober-Anniversary, he plays “Song Sung Blue”.
Afterwards, Mike heads to an amusement park, where he changes from his leather jacket into a Hawaiian shirt and a wig… he was hired to impersonate Don Ho for an impersonation group that provides a variety of impersonators, like Elvis, Buddy Holly, and Little Richard.
When Mike refuses to come on stage as anyone other than himself, aka “Lightning”, he quits the group right as Claire (Kate Hudson) readies to come on as Patsy Cline. Mike and Claire have a conversation where she suggests he go down the Neil Diamond route.
Mike watches her sing and is smitten. Mike heads home, puts on a Neil Diamond vinyl to practice with.
The next day, Mike is a guitarist for a group called “The Esquires” at the same amusement park where Claire comes to hang out and watch. After the gig, Mike and Claire chat at the park and find that their previous marriages mirror one another, where the female half left for being made to feel small. Mike admits to his mistakes from the previous marriage and has been working to do and be better.
Later that evening, Mike goes to Claire’s home, where she shares her two children from her previous marriage with her mother: Rachel (elder daughter) and Dayna (younger son)… There, Mike tells Claire about what she said the other night, but how there needs to be a hook. Claire suggests that, rather than an “impersonator,” he is more of a Neil Diamond interpreter. He starts playing his guitar, and Claire eventually joins in with harmony vocals as they rock out… except they wake Claire’s mom, who complains that no one sings that loud that late at night. So Mike brings it down by playing “Play Me,” and Claire joins in.
After the jam session, Claire walks Mike out, who says they need a name and suggests “Lightning and Thunder”… Claire puts two and two together and realizes that since Mike is already “Lightning”, that must mean she’s “Thunder”. At Mike’s affirmation, Claire kisses him… which Mike returns enthusiastically.
Later, Mike meets with his manager, who is also his dentist (who fills Mike’s missing tooth with a tooth that has a lightning bolt on it), and the Buddy Holly impersonator that runs the impersonation troupe to 1) apologize for quitting the impersonation troupe and 2) ask for help to build up “Lightning and Thunder”. Soon, a producing team is built.
At home, Mike has “The Esquire” band members also doubling as “Lightning and Thunder” band… Claire comes with her kids. Mike, feeling nervous around Rachel, asks his daughter, Angelina, from his first marriage, to come up from Florida (where she stays with her mom). Rachel and Angelina bond over their respective crazy parental and family lives, and Angelina asks Rachel to join her for a smoke and to climb onto the roof of a car to hang back as a plane passes.
In the garage, Claire and other band members convince Mike to open the garage door as it is humid and hot, and Mike relents in spite of the glares he got from his neighbors across the street. As the garage door opens, Mike sees Mark (the Buddy Holly impersonator) with his guitar and asks to be a part of the band, as Buddy Holly died in his 20s, and he’s been keeping him around for 3 decades too long.
They start jamming, and Dayna (Claire’s younger son) is seen jamming and dancing in the background, and eventually the neighbor across the street does as well. They are rehearsing for a gig at a local bar, except the audience turned out to be a bunch of bikers in leather vests.
Mike insists they play the set as intended, which the audience ignores, and when one of the patrons says, “Neil Diamond sucks,” Mike starts a fight, and eventually their first gig ends. Outside of the bar everyone was packing up and leaving and Mike and Claire had a bit of an argument where Mike admits that the evening was screwed up because he was going to take Claire on a romantic evening with a buffet and a suite and he was going to ask her to marry him and that he had a ring and everything… to which Claire is fixated on the ring portion of the conversation and says “yes”… as long as they get to start their reception with “Sweet Caroline”.
Cue montage sequence of their wedding and a string of successful shows, and things are looking up (including being an opening act for Pearl Jam). They are weeks away from playing a weekend of gigs as a casino venue, and during the respite, Mike asks Dayna (Claire and her kids have now moved in with Mike) to film him as she commemorates his 21st Sober-Anniversary. In the meantime, Claire is gardening because she feels more color is needed… only for a car to spin off the road and run over her.
At the hospital, Rachel meets her family, where Claire is being operated on. Because Mike is unable to say anything about Claire, he takes Rachel to another room and closes the curtains. Mike turns on the defibrillator and tries to explain to Rachel that he is in the middle of a heart attack and when she hears the beeping to place the paddles at two particular locations on his body to shock him back to life (Mike is ex-military and has experience in these scenarios)… except Mike loses consciousness, Rachel freaks out saying that they “Need Lightning”, she hears the beeping and after a moment puts the paddles on Mike and jolts him back to life.
Later, Claire wakes up from bed at her home and goes to stand up, but she falls, having forgotten that they had to amputate her left leg from the knee down. Mike comes in and carries her back into bed.
A series of scenes in which Claire struggles post-amputation. During a session with her doctor, she mentions having dreamed of playing in larger venues and singing, and how close they were to making that dream come true. Rachel tries to get her mom ready for her prosthetic appointment, but Rachel struggles to get out of bed. Dayna helps with dinner. Mike is finding other work as a host for a Thai restaurant for karaoke nights, though he is allowed to sing Neil Diamond on Wednesday Nights with the karaoke machine. At home, Claire accuses Mike of having women on the side because she’s not beautiful anymore, and the fights continue to escalate.
One of these evenings, Angelina (Mike’s daughter) visits Mike at the Thai restaurant, where he is staying late because the owner is commemorating the death anniversary of his wife, so it is sad songs all night long. Angelina tells Mike that she and Rachel communicate a lot, that she knows Mike and Claire have been fighting, and asks if he has been attending his AA meetings. After a bit more prodding, Mike admits that singing doesn’t mean anything when Claire isn’t there to sing with him. Angelina insists he needs to attend AA meetings, and he agrees.
One evening, Claire wakes up from bed to see smoke beckoning her to come out. Getting up, Claire crawls towards the smoke, only to find herself backstage and pulling the curtain away to see the microphone ahead of her.
Claire crosses to the microphone, the audience watching her, and starts to sing. Halfway through the song, she hears Mike’s voice telling her to get up, and eventually she is ripped from the dream, and we find her outside, having crawled out of the house and screaming at Mike that the microphone is calling for her. In the background, Dayna and Rachel hug one as they watch their mother lose herself more and more.
The family decides that Claire needs psychiatric help and admits her into the hospital, where Mike breaks down momentarily, needing reassurance that this is the right thing.
At home, Mike is looking for jobs again, while Rachel comes in needing her radiator fixed so she can go to work. Mike helps add more fluid as Rachel admits that she is four months pregnant, but because she is too busy parenting everyone else in the family, no one has noticed. Mike takes a moment, then walks Rachel through the SMEAC (Situation, Mission, Execution, Administration/Logistics, and Command/Signal) military acronym.
Situation: Rachel is pregnant
Mission: Rachel wishes to give the child to a couple who want the child.
Execution/Administration/Logistics: Rachel has already reached out to adoption services and taken steps to find a couple who have been helping to pay for medical bills…
Mike is impressed with Rachel’s initiative and asks about Command/Signal… aka who does she need to help her, and Rachel admits that she needs her mom.
Claire is going through her own sessions at the hospital and realizes that in losing her leg, she allowed that to cause her to lose her desire to sing, and it shouldn’t. This breakthrough allows her to come home in time for Christmas, where she tries to reconnect with the family, admitting that, though she is better, she hasn’t reached her emotional catharsis yet and would like Mike to be there with her to help her reach it.
One day, Claire goes back to look at the flower patch that she stood at last when she was hit by a car that caused her to lose her leg. After several moments, Claire heads inside, only for a car to come out of nowhere and hit the exact spot that she was just standing on not long ago. The driver apologizes after losing control of the car; the family runs around to assess the damage, and Claire starts laughing because “lightning does strike twice.”
Eventually, she pushes for “Lightning and Thunder” to go gigging again, that she wants to be “Thunder” again… cueing a montage of “Lightning and Thunder” performing again, first at the Thai restaurant and eventually elsewhere, recapturing their popularity. At home, Claire helps her daughter through the remainder of the pregnancy, all the way through giving the child to the happy couple. Claire and Mike also walk to help Claire strengthen her muscles with her prosthetic.
Eventually, the Ritz in Milwaukee invited them to be a headliner on the same night Neil Diamond was playing his sold-out show… allowing fans of Neil Diamond to enjoy his music in another way. Mike and Claire agree to the gig and start to prepare.
The day of the gig, the production team tells Mike and Claire that, after the show, Neil Diamond wants to meet them in person at a popular local ice cream shop, and that their show is also sold out.
Preparing for the gig, Mike experiences another heart attack and, while collapsing, hits his head on the sink before hitting the floor. After a moment, Mike wakes up and feels blood at the spot where he hit his head. Getting up, he looks for something (crazy glue? I couldn’t tell) to keep his head together (yes, I know this sounds weird, but I don’t know what else it is) while Rachel comes around the corner and has a happy conversation with him through the door (she calls him Papa now, I think).
At the venue, everyone is preparing, and the whole family is around. Claire’s mom wishes him good luck. Angelina comes to watch with Rachel and Dayna. The audience is full of familiar audience members from previous shows. Mike and Claire wish each other good luck, and Mike tells Claire that none of this is possible without her and that she is his everything (don’t remember exact words).
Concert starts to raucous applause, and afterwards, every head to the ice cream parlor to meet Neil Diamond, only to be bombarded by their own fans. They find out that Neil Diamond just finished his show and is on his way. After another kiss, Claire goes out to say hello to everyone, but when she goes back into the car to prompt Mike to come out, Claire finds that Mike has just passed away.
Days later, it is the day of the funeral. Rachel is struggling to write a speech as Angelina supports her. Dayna tells her mother she doesn’t have to sing if she isn’t up for it. Claire says she has to sing… and at the funeral she does.
Later… Dayna plays a recording. It is Mike’s pre-recording for the AA meeting, introducing himself and noting that it is his 22nd Sober-Anniversary.
Rachel is changing the oil in a car, and Claire pulls a wagon of plants and flowers to put in the same spot where a car had hit twice, except now Rachel is also watching the road to give the “all clear,” so Claire can plant in peace and safety.
