If writer/director Craig Brewer’s poignant drama weren’t based on actual events, it would be a shameless tear-jerker.
Be advised: The fact that it is based on actual events, makes it even more of a tear-jerker.
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| Mike (Hugh Jackman, left), Dave (Fisher Stevens, center left) and Mark (Michael Imperioli, center right) listen intently, as Tom (Jim Belushi) outlines their upcoming touring schedule. |
Brewer’s film, based on Greg Kohs’ 2008 documentary of the same title, deftly profiles small-time musicians Mike Sardina (Jackman) and Claire Stengl (Hudson): how they met, and the magic that occurred once they got together.
Brewer begins unexpectedly, with a tight-tight-tight close-up of Jackman’s face, as Mike gravely recounts some seminal moments in his life: a confession of sorts, which concludes as the camera pulls back, to reveal that he’s at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. It’s a special day — his 20-year “sobriety birthday” — and he celebrates it as he has each one before, by concluding with a solo guitar performance of “Song Sung Blue.”
Mike moonlights as a mechanic to support his true passion, as a veteran musician — nicknamed Lightning — on the Milwaukee gigging circuit, performing whatever is demanded at county fairs, small auditoriums and dive bars. After uncharacteristically refusing a gig — insisting that trying to impersonate Hawaiian pop singer Don Ho is too much of a stretch — he chances to catch Claire doing her Patsy Cline act at the Wisconsin State Fair.
They click (to put it mildly).
“I’m not a songwriter, I’m not a sex symbol,” he confesses. “I just want to entertain people.”
“I don’t want to be a hairdresser,” she replies, “I want to sing, I want to dance, I want a garden, I want a cat.”
The relationship happens quickly, both because they’re sympatico … and also because Jackman and Hudson radiate charm and charisma the way the rest of us breathe. Mike and Claire are totally cute together, with a goofy, giddy level of excitement like teenagers experiencing love for the first time.
Both have painful pasts. In addition to his hard-fought sobriety, Mike carries trauma from his service in Vietnam as a “tunnel rat,” and has a failed marriage behind him; Claire also is divorced.
Mike gets occasional visits from his college-age daughter, Angelina (pop chanteuse King Princess); their relationship is prickly, at best. Claire has two kids — teenage Rachel (Ella Anderson) and adolescent Dana (Hudson Hensley) — who frequently drive her crazy. Both Mike and Claire also struggle financially.
Musically, though, they go together like peanut butter and jelly.
