Song Sung Blue review
By Joel Humphries · Watched 12.15.25
★★★ 3 / 5
Spoiler-free review
Song Sung Blue is a well-made musical biopic with solid work from Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson, but this genre depends heavily on whether the music means something to you. Neil Diamond does not mean much to me, making most of the performance sequences tedious despite several lively rounds of “Sweet Caroline.” Hudson’s rendition of the title song finally reached the emotion the rest of the soundtrack could not. In a year crowded with portraits of more compelling musical figures—and, in my opinion, better music—professional execution only carries this so far.
Full review — contains spoilers
This is a well done movie. Jackman and Hudson were both solid here.
Like many musical biopics a lot of whether you'll enjoy this depends on your familiarity with and taste for the music itself. I thought this was a well done movie, but I don't care for Neil Diamond at all. For me, the musical set pieces were tedious outside of multiple game renditions of sweet Caroline. As a counterpoint to that general rule for this, I did find Hudson's performance of song sung blue at the end beautiful and moving.
I feel like they're throwing a lot of musical biopics at us this year, but unfortunately for this one in comparison, Springsteen and Bob Dylan are just more interesting figures than a Neil Diamond interpreter. And their music is better. JMO.