The story of one of Country music’s greatest icons is told in the drama biopic “I Saw the Light”. Marc Abraham writes and directs this story about a young adult Hank Williams (Tom Hiddleston), a legendary country western singer, who in his brief life created one of the greatest bodies of work in American music. Hank’s journey is a story of tortured love and heartbreaking sorrow, before and after he meets his future wife Audrey (Elizabeth Olsen). The film chronicles his meteoric rise to fame as the voice of a generation, and its ultimately tragic effect on his health and personal life to the time he passed away at the tender age of 29. Written and directed by Marc Abraham, the film is based on Colin Escott’s award-winning, best-selling biography, and stars an all-star cast of Cherry Jones, Bradley Whitford, and Josh Pais to name a few. “I Saw the Light” is rated R for language and brief sexuality/nudity.

If “I Saw the Light” were a country song, it would be one of a melodic tune to get you moving and intrigued, but then its lyrics would shift the offering, and make it feel out of place and completely opposite of the music it has created. The script is based off of the biography by Colin Escott, and the film definitely feels like something translated from the pages of a book. The reason I say that is because most of the problems that center around this film happen because the script is really jumbled, often jumping from one time period to the next with very little exposition or explanation. The movie is supported by some brief (And I do mean brief) on-screen narration by Bradley Whitford, who plays Hank’s manager. What’s pointless about this narration is two things; the first is that these things he is telling us already happened in a previous scene. So it’s basically serving as a repeating description of what we just saw. This feels like a waste of time to the already jaded two hour run time for the film. The second problem with the narration, comes in the final act of the film. We start to see Whitford more as we near the end of Hank’s life, but the problem is that it doesn’t show us the things that it describes. Hank’s death is left literally with very little briefing or screen time, and it feels like a missed opportunity to move the audience out of this dull coma that the film put us in.

For a lot of that boredom, I point to the tone of this film staying at the same place, and never getting us out of this moody hole that Abraham places us in. Maybe it’s intentional for the way Williams lived his life, but that doesn’t mean it translates well to entertainment. The film could do itself a huge favor by inserting more of these on-stage performance scenes, because that seems to be the only time when Hank was ever truly happy. That’s not to say that there isn’t anything exciting about Hank’s life, but the film surrounds itself with this bubble of downtrodden that never feels remotely inspiring or reflective of the legendary presence that (As the movie mentions) gave people the ability to forget about their problems for a couple hours. It’s almost like we as an audience become his negative enablers, and we just wait for him to fail behind every corner. At least biopic films like “Walk The Line” placed Johnny Cash’s troubles with a step back to reflect at a man who loved music. By the third act of this movie, I see a tortured man who was everything but suicidal. It gives this movie little re-watch value to anyone who isn’t a major Williams fan, because who wants to be depressed for two straight hours?

As for the positives, the movie has a couple of really surprising performances, as well as a soundtrack that offers the very best of Hank in his prime. Classics like “Your Cheating Heart”, “What Ya Got Cooking” and “I’m So Blue” offer some real strong performances from Hiddleston as the right man for the job. There has been a lot of controversy with Williams grandson in the media expressing his distaste for Hiddleston’s vocal abilities, but I think he truly nailed the very somber and vocal changes of Hank in his prime. One of the things that worried me the most about this film was the casting of a British actor in the role of a Southern country artist, and I couldn’t have been more naive. Tom translates the sorrow of this character perfectly, even when the script lacks any real involvement with his character. His vocal abilities are out of this world with some of the swift vocal changes where vocal pitches are both high and low. Hiddleston can’t be blamed for the producers decision to not look further into Hank’s most important moments outside of music. For instance, at 23 years old, he goes to rehab, but he just shows up there in one scene. No build up to it, just appears in a hospital bed, and then he’s gone in the next scene. I feel like the film could’ve also dug a little deeper at the obvious depression and anxiety that plagued Hank. I was also quite pleased with Elizabeth Olsen as Audrey, the mother of Hank’s child. This is definitely the biggest committed role that Elizabeth has invested herself in, and it’s quite evident with an on-screen transformation that really nails Audrey’s profile. Olsen also had to do some singing in the film, and while I can’t confirm if she matched Audrey’s vocal abilities, I can say that she didn’t sound terrible. Everyone with a microphone definitely trained above and beyond for their roles.

Overall, “I Saw the Light” showcases some strong individual performances, but the sum of it’s parts overshadows such positives. With very little excitement or heart for a script that dramatically jumps its way throughout Hank’s short lived fame, Abraham’s film will leave fans of Williams with the kind of sorrow that the singer wrote about.

4/10