I Saw the Light (2016)

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

I am older and Hank was gone by the time I was born. I warned there were spoilers, but anyone who knows anything about Hank, already knows about his drinking problems and the problems with his personal life. I gave the movie a 10 because I thought Tom Hiddleston did a fantastic job and had Hank's moves down pat. I thought his singing was great. I was very disappointed that I Saw the Light and I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry was not included in the soundtrack since Tom had especially done a great job with the latter. I thought Elizabeth did a great job as Audrey. I do realize there were issues with the screenplay, but I thought in general, it gave the viewers an idea of who Hank was. My in-laws saw him in person and I was introduced to his music when I moved here with my husband. It was quite a shock coming from New Orleans.

I am very disappointed by this movie. I gave it 5 stars because of the performances and production values, which were both very good. Tom Hiddleston, of which I am a fan, delivers a great performance, as he usually does, and it was a pleasure to hear him sing. He seems to have put a lot of effort to put himself into the character, and I salute that. Elisabeth Olsen, as Audrey Williams, is also excellent.However, the movie itself is extremely bland. Even a film based on real life events needs to have a story arc in order to engage the viewers. There's factual, and then there's boring. There was no story in this movie, just (sometimes very) short sequences from Williams' life in chronological order. The first half of the movie was particularly jarring, as we moved from one event to another, without time to feel the impact of one scene before the next arrived. I'm not calling for melodrama, but this first half was as engaging as a Wikipedia page. It did get slightly better in the second half.For a musical biopic, there was a surprising lack of focus on music. Sure, we were shown musical performances, but we weren't shown a lot of context around them, making them seem more decorative than part of the story told. Maybe the film was made only for aficionados who already know everything about the country & western music business from the 40's? I doubt it. My biggest disappointment is that, apart from making me listen to beautiful songs, this movie completely failed to show me how important Hank Williams is in the history of music. If I had never heard about him (and before this year, I had never heard about him), I would be baffled as to why they felt it was important to make a movie about him.I could understand their choice to focus more on Williams' personal life, if they had made it interesting to me. But the movie is as unemotional as they could have made it. The direction is so detached that I sometimes felt like I was watching some sort of existential comedy, a la Coen brothers. Maybe I'm slightly exaggerating, but I did laugh at some scenes that I don't feel were supposed to be funny. I could not be invested emotionally at all, with the exception of a very few scenes. I really blame the direction here, because the actors did give emotional performances. It just seemed that the director didn't want us to feel any empathy for anyone.

I came away from this with the same reaction I have to so many biopics: the best way to know an artist his through his or her work.Tom Hiddleston gives a credible performance, but it seemed just that-- a performance. It lacked any spark of charisma to make me care for Williams with any emotional depth. Curious that an English actor would take on this role, even to the extent of singing. The fact of having Hiddleston sing instead of using actual Williams recordings was a gamble that did not pay off for me. When Hiddleston sings "Cold, Cold Heart" very early on his cover was off just enough to be jarring to me. You can teach a dog to walk on its hind legs, but what you still have is a dog walking on its hind legs.The movie spends a lot of time on Willims' stormy relationship with his first wife Audrey--the first scene with them has them being married. So, we jump in when Williams was 21, at a time that precluded any discussion of Willaims' youth. Seeing what the foundation was for the talent that was to come would have been of interest. Williams led a hectic life and I wish this movie could have been edited better to allow for guiding us through the maelstrom with better clarity.There was a dichotomy between what we see of Williams' life and the lyrics of his songs. Where did deeply sensitive lyrics like,----------I tried so hard, my dear, to show that you're my every dreamYet you're afraid each thing I do is just some evil scheme A memory from your lonesome past keeps us so far apart Why can't I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold, cold heart?------------come from? On the up side, this movie reminded me of what a wonderful songwriter Williams was, how in such a short life he gave us so many memorable songs.Maybe what makes an artist tick must always remain a mystery, but I did not get too close to what made Williams' tick from this movie.

The only thing which made this dreary movie bearable was Tom Hiddleston's singing. Why a great classical actor such as Hiddleston (Henry V in The Hollow Crown) found himself in this yawnfest is beyond comprehension. Where they should have had an exciting montage showing Hank Williams going from smoky sweaty honky tonks in the South to Grand ol' Oprey and beyond, performing one song after another, we got a dull flat cheating husband soap opera played out in tacky motel rooms. Compared with the Johnny Cash biopic I Walk the Line, this was a waste of money and the waste of time spent watching it. The film had a budget TV movie feel with the major sets being outside the front door of William's home and a budget hotel room, which appeared to be the same one throughout. Even the scenes of meetings consisted of a man sitting behind a desk face by one or two others and little movement. The long farewell to his wife before he drove away to his unexpected death was excruciatingly corny.The lone star is Tom Hiddleston's singing, of which we heard far too little. I hope his career survives.