Sandwiched between last month’s Chet Baker biopic Born To Be Blue and next week’s Miles Davis film Miles Ahead is I Saw the Light, which did a round on the fall festival circuit first. It stars Tom Hiddleston as Hank Williams, who in about a half-decade career managed to become an icon, despite—according to this movie, at least—being a complete disaster of a person. Hiddleston, who is a terrific actor and does his own more-than-competent singing, plays Williams from age 23 to his death at 29, which is a bit of a problem considering he’s 34. There’s never any gee-shucks youthful naïveté to him, except for right off the top when he giddily marries Audrey (Elizabeth Olsen, given one shrill note to play) in a gas-station ceremony in the pouring rain. All Williams wants to do is get to the Grand Ole Opry; by the time he does he’s a wreck. This is what happened and this is what’s true, but rather than focus on the art, Abraham would rather show you what a shit-show his protagonist is as opposed to creating the art we remember him for. It’s worth watching for Hiddleston’s performance, but Williams fans won’t find much to love.
This article appears in Apr 14-20, 2016.