Tom Hiddleston turns in a performance as Hank Williams that rivals some of the musical biopic genre’s greatest turns. The Thor star is right up there with Sissy Spacek in Coal Miner’s Daughter, Jamie Foxx in Ray and Joaquin Phoenix in Walk the Line. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie fails him completely.
Hiddleston stars as Williams and as we meet him, he’s a struggling songwriter-performer who has a daily morning show where he gets to perform his tracks. It’s something, but it is far from the bright lights of The Grand Ole Opry, which is the benchmark for any country music performer of this day (and days prior and day’s future!). After repeatedly having his efforts to perform on the iconic stage blocked by management, he takes matters in his own hands when he realizes if he has a hit record, they can’t ignore him. Enter Move It On Over. The track hits the top of the charts and Williams is on his way.
The country music star would set the standard for so many out there, from Elvis Presley on to today’s stars in terms of how a rock star is perceived, lived and loved. Williams also did something extraordinary, which to this day has not been matched — even by The Beatles. The singer-songwriter had 36 hits in the six years he was on the scene before he died. That’s six hits a year… one every other month.
Do we get that part of his story in I Saw the Light? No. No we don’t. We get the heartbreaks and the physical ailment ups and downs of his life on the road, which is important. But, never during the entire film does writer-director Marc Abraham give us the context that all of this “life” stuff is happening to our biopic subject. Even worse, Abraham frames his story with a recorded interview that Williams’s manager Fred Rose (Bradley Whitford) gave talking about his client and his impact. History has told us that Williams died young, but it is jarring to hear this film narrated by someone talking about the person we’re watching achieving this greatness and it’s all referred to as in the past.
Elizabeth Olsen also shines in the acting department with her turn as Williams’s second wife Audrey. She had singing dreams as well and in the motion picture, she’s painted as someone who resented the country music star for all of his success. It was a career that she wanted, but instead was saddled with raising Hank’s kids and keeping the home front fires burning. In fact, Audrey was a trailblazer in the manner with which she kept strict records of all of Williams’s concert sales, record sales and even residuals for songs that her husband (and eventual ex-husband) wrote that other artists would cover. Do we see that aspect in I Saw the Light? No. No we don’t.
Sometimes films are solid enough that the riveting performances rises above. The Iron Lady was an average picture, and the extraordinary performance by Meryl Streep was worthy of the Oscar it won. Sadly, that is not the case here.
I Saw the Light was originally set to be released in November and even got a slew of Oscar buzz at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Then suddenly, it was yanked and a release date of late March/early April was announced. It appears that all that buzz over Hiddleston’s performance suddenly become overshadowed by how pedantic and yes, boring, the film was. It is sad, almost tragic that this is the sum result of Hiddleston’s film… because let’s be real, it is his film.
The performer, best known for being Loki in the Marvel film series, blows the roof off of the biopic subgenre of film. His cadence, how he carries himself and especially how he sings every song on the soundtrack, is nothing short of brilliant. Sadly, few people will ever see it because the film itself that that performance anchors, fails him miserably.
The Movie Mensch has said this repeatedly, a misfire biopic is one of our biggest Hollywood pet peeves. Studios don’t remake biopics. You only get one shot to tell the ordinary world about someone who lived in it that was extraordinary. Williams track record and cultural impact will never reach the world as it deserves to, thanks to I Saw the Light, frankly, not shining any light whatsoever on its subject other than walking us through the steps of the more melodramatic aspects of his life.
Grade: C-