Tom Hiddleston stars as the legendary country singer, and Elizabeth Olsen makes a supporting turn as his first wife Audrey.
Although writer/director Marc Abraham manages to wring nuanced performances from his talented cast, almost everything else about I Saw the Light remains in the dark.
The story picks up with Hank in his early 20s at the end of his small-town radio career. He begs his handlers to give him a shot at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee which has been a dream of Hank's for as long as he can remember. When his first appearance goes off like gangbusters, it seems Hank finally has the world at his fingertips.
Now, we all know Hank Williams the singer/songwriter, but how well do we know Hank Williams the man, the alcoholic who died in the back of his car at the age of 29?
Turns out, we know him quite well. I Saw the Light joins a long list of now-vanilla biopics about tragic, self-destructive "artists" and fails to adequately explore the pathos behind these real-life characters. Abraham's script can't be bothered to differentiate Williams' story from any standard biopic that's been released in the past 10-15 years. We get a good sense of what's on the surface but never an understanding of the driving force behind the man.
The first half-hour is also very poorly edited. Cuts, dissolves and cross-fades are placed at two or three scene transitions before the preceeding sequence is finished. Fortunately, this mistake is cleaned up as the film goes on, but there's really no excuse for ignoring basic filmmaking techniques in a modestly-budgeted, A-list production.
If this had been released 10 years ago during awards season, Hiddleston would likely be up for an Oscar. His assured performance keeps the film watchable, and his singing is quite good. It occurred to this reviewer, however, that as often as we consider Williams a musical "genius" and credit him with the invention of an entire genre of music, every single one of his songs sounds the exact same.
*Cue Kermit the Frog sipping tea*
If you've seen Ray and Walk the Line, you've seen I Saw the Light.
D
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