How entertaining? ★☆☆☆☆
Thought provoking? ★☆☆☆☆ 5 January 2016
A movie review of I SAW THE LIGHT. |
YouTube review:
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“Can you see it now?” Audrey Mae Williams (Elizabeth Olsen)
2015 should have been actor Tom Hiddleston’s breakout year, after owning so many of the movies he has appeared in regardless of the part size. I SAW THE LIGHT, HIGH-RISE and CRIMSON PEAK have all disappointed to varying degrees. One cannot fault ambition or adventurousness of choices (especially as his next two reported projects are: KONG: SKULL ISLAND and THOR: RAGNORAK), though the end results are gambles not paid off. I SAW THE LIGHT is an excruciatingly tedious biopic of country singer Hank Williams. It makes those schedule-filler afternoon made-for-TV movies seem hard-hitting and incisive in comparison.
2015 should have been actor Tom Hiddleston’s breakout year, after owning so many of the movies he has appeared in regardless of the part size. I SAW THE LIGHT, HIGH-RISE and CRIMSON PEAK have all disappointed to varying degrees. One cannot fault ambition or adventurousness of choices (especially as his next two reported projects are: KONG: SKULL ISLAND and THOR: RAGNORAK), though the end results are gambles not paid off. I SAW THE LIGHT is an excruciatingly tedious biopic of country singer Hank Williams. It makes those schedule-filler afternoon made-for-TV movies seem hard-hitting and incisive in comparison.
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Bland, cliché biopics use up too many resources, which should be offered to the likes of I’M NOT THERE and 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE – unusual structures honing in on particular periods to illustrate the wider whole. I SAW THE LIGHT catalogues the rote formula of rise-addiction-fall, though thankfully avoids the redemption mawkish clunker grace note. But at 123 minutes, you will be glad for no more additional story.
Alabama, 1944, and inside a car body shop Hank Williams (Hiddleston) and Audrey are in the process of being married, by a justice of the peace-cum-mechanic. Far from romantic minimalism, this frill-less ceremony prefigures an unhappy marriage. If any biopic has taught us, it is this: Never be the first spouse while the subject is on the way up. Hiddleston and Olsen do their best with a Southern accent; their grating tones though would not be out of place in comedy spoof, WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY.
I SAW THE LIGHT spans from 1944 to 1952, and it feels as if it is in real time. Woeful storytelling is the default mode. Years tick by, no context is given, just repetition of ideas. Getting to the core of who Hank Williams was, or an analysis of why he is a mystery, is a distant audience dream. Contrast AMADEUS. Offered is the occasional inane black and white shot interview, by a record company bod, which has laughable insights. Of course, there is the addiction theme, here alcoholism and later drugs – pain numbing for an injured back is an implied reason.
What made Williams’ music special? Why did it connect with an audience? Merely having Hiddleston sing is far from adequate enquiry. At one point, there is mention of Hank’s alternative musical persona, “Lou the drifter.” The pseudonym and its oeuvre are not at all explored. Contrast, the goosebump raising scenes of Paul Dano as Brian Wilson putting together ‘Pet Sounds’ in the studio in LOVE & MERCY.
A biopic should make history come alive. This does the opposite.
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