{"id":5568,"date":"2016-04-19T07:28:08","date_gmt":"2016-04-19T11:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5568"},"modified":"2016-05-05T08:12:51","modified_gmt":"2016-05-05T12:12:51","slug":"i-saw-the-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5568","title":{"rendered":"I Saw the Light"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TomThe recent biopics of jazz musicians Chet Baker<\/a> and Miles Davis (haven\u2019t seen it yet) have been dinged for being impressionistic, improvisational, jazzy and showing only a limited period of their subject\u2019s lives, in the case of Miles Ahead<\/em>, 1979. With I Saw the Light<\/em> (trailer<\/a>), about country music legend Hank Williams, written and directed by Marc Abraham, we see the perils of the conventional treatment.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a too familiar formula. Although this one skips over the difficult childhood and lacks the manager-as-ripoff-artist, we do have the rocky rise to stardom, wild success with 36 Top Ten singles, the lure of alcohol, drugs and dames, and missed shots at redemption\u2014the whole gloomy self-destructive spiral. Truthfully, because Hank Williams died at age 29, his didn\u2019t really have much chance to have a significant story arc to his life, which suggests something other than a chronology might have worked better. Instead, we have a movie that critic J. Olson<\/a> says is \u201cflatter than a silver dollar pancake.\u201d<\/p>\n

That fundamental problem is not redeemed by top-notch acting and the music. Tom Hiddleston (a Brit, no less) is a believable Williams\u2014charming, uninterested in what people think of him (maybe he should have been)\u2014and Hiddleston sings all the songs, which apparently were filmed live. Elizabeth Olsen is his wife Audrey Mae, tired of watching him lose the struggle with his demons and miffed he doesn\u2019t support her singing career. She\u2019s cute, but she\u2019s a truly awful singer. Bradley Whitford plays Williams\u2019s supportive manager, Fred Rose, and the guys in Hank\u2019s band seem like the real thing, too.<\/p>\n

Williams had a congenital back problem\u2014a mild form of spina bifida\u2014that may have made him prone to injuries. In any case, the injuries sure contributed to the development of chronic back pain, which explains that slight waist-bend in the movie posters, and exposed Williams to all the hazards associated with self-medication.<\/p>\n

If you love country music, you\u2019ll enjoy this film, even though you know the ending. If you\u2019re not a fan, you know the ending too. This film makes the efforts to break out of the mold in the Baker and Davis films that much more appreciated.<\/p>\n

Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> critics rating 19%; audiences, 51%.<\/p>\n

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