Craig Brewer

In Song Sung Blue (2025), Hugh Jackman’s Mike Sardina talks Kate Hudson’s Claire into forming a Neil Diamond tribute act. Their act takes them through weddings and festivals, and Brewer lets the singing justify the attention rather than treating it as a joke. That respect is one of his strengths. His interest is in the people doing the singing and what they need from it, which gives the music a reason to be there. We like him most when he also notices what his performers will do to get a hearing.

The independent The Poor & Hungry (2000), shot in Memphis, came before the breakthrough of Hustle & Flow (2005). The latter established the underdog-musician story he would keep returning to. Black Snake Moan (2007) followed with the blues, before the studio remake Footloose (2011) mixed hip-hop and country. Eddie Murphy then became a collaborator on Dolemite Is My Name (2019) and Coming 2 America (2021).

The useful comparison for Song Sung Blue is with Hustle & Flow and Dolemite Is My Name. One follows a Memphis man making a record on borrowed equipment; the other follows a comic building a career around a character he did not invent. Both let ambition look a little suspect, and both are sharper for it. Mike and Claire, by contrast, remain decent people to whom bad things happen. Brewer gives Jackman and Hudson room to sing honestly, but the script offers too little sense that these people might help cause their own difficulties.

We stopped flinching during Song Sung Blue, because the repeated misfortunes had made another blow feel routine. Brewer shows restraint around the worst suffering, but Bomar’s swelling score keeps announcing fresh trouble. Editor Billy Fox moves briskly through the gigs and lingers over the kitchen and hospital scenes, giving too much time to hardship and too little to the act. At 133 minutes, the film needs less adversity and a firmer cut. Start with Hustle & Flow for a Brewer protagonist who has something to answer for as well as something to sing.