The dignity of singing in front of the mirror

Between alcoholics' meetings, casinos, and Thai restaurants, the great showman Hugh Jackman returns to the stage with Song sung blue (2025) to step into the shoes of Mike Sardina, one half of a Neil Diamond tribute band he shares with his wife Claire, played by a long-suffering Kate Hudson. Director Craig Brewer thus changes the codes of biopic A musical to get closer to those unknown artists hidden behind imitation. But in the attempt to dignify the profession, the result once again emphasizes an overly saccharine drama, as moving as it is ironically identical to any other similar production.

The way Brewer films the shows is stunning and invites us to see the multifaceted nature of singers dedicated to their craft, who convey the understated passion that we could also identify, for example, in the films of John Carney. However, authenticity only takes shape when he expands the reality around him into a portrait of the precariousness of the profession: a world of suburbia adjacent to theme parks or roadside bars and devoid of the glamour of the stars they recreate.

Through these interesting impersonatorsThe film explores what it means to be oneself and questions one's self-representation—in front of the mirror. Turning this type of story into yet another version of Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) is perhaps his most precise and significant gesture.