I SAW THE LIGHT (2015)
Directed by Marc
Abraham
Sony Pictures, 123
minutes, R (for little apparent reason)
★★
Neil Young once responded to a critic charging him with
redundancy with the tart rejoinder, "It's all the same song." Young's
was the last music memoir I read and I don't plan to pick up another. They are,
in fact, all the same song. I wish Hollywood would get the message. I recently
caught the Hank Williams biopic I Saw the
Light on video and, to invoke a Williams song, my take on this and all future
plans for features on famed musicians is: "Why Should We Try
Anymore?"
Musician biographies are like Legos: snap out a blue block
and stick in a red one. You can write your own by following this oh-so-familiar
arc. Begin with a person obsessed by music and add an ambitious alter ego
(mother, agent, producer). Cut to how the musician pays his or her dues in
rough conditions (road house, honky tonk, sleazy club), contemplates giving up,
but catches a break. Cue to the rise to fame, but a path strewn with obstacles
(bad relationships, con jobs, physical challenges). Segue to substance abuse
(booze, drugs, both), and salt with disillusionment (from others or internal).
The last provides the sole opportunity for narrative departure, though there
are really just three options: self-destruction, sobriety, or reinvention. End
with a funeral, a chastened testimonial, or a triumphant return.
Hiram "Hank" Williams (1923-53) is certainly one
of the most important songwriters in country and western history. He was an
Alabama-raised product of the days in which country music was unabashedly corny
and heartbreak was a song staple. In a brief career (just 1938 to early 1953),
Williams landed an astonishing thrity-five songs on the country Top Ten list, eleven
of which went to number one. Who doesn't know songs like "Hey Good
Lookin'," "Your Cheatin' Heart," and "I'm So Lonesome I
Could Cry?" He was dead at twenty-nine—just missing the infamous 27
Club–after two marriages and as much alcohol and drug abuse as a human body
could take. Short lives such as his don't provide a lot of biographical detail,
another reason why music biopics are so generic.
I Saw the Light, inexpertly
directed by Marc Abraham, adopts a tone that's something Williams never was:
flat. British actor Tom Hiddleston plays Williams and did his own singing. He's
okay, though his singing is akin to the way a lot of English actors do American
accents: precisely, but without emotion or soul. His best effect is using his
beanpole frame to embody the physical deterioration of a man in his late
twenties who looks like he's on the wrong side of fifty. We might not notice
Hiddleston's middle range vocals so much had the script had contained something
other than the formula outlined in the second paragraph. Alas, we wtiness young
Hiram deciding to become "Hank" because it sounded more authentic whilst
being encouraged by his enabling mother Lillie (Cherry Jones). Then on to honky
tonk bar fights, play-for-little-pay local radio, and chasing the dream of
playing the Grand Ole Opry—which everyone knows he will, or there's no film to
be made. Then a rival muse, his first wife Audrey Sheppard (Elizabeth Olsen),
and a downward spiral of booze, divorce, an inappropriate marriage to
19-year-old Billie Jean Jones (Maddie Hasson), tragedy, and posthumous
remembrances. Olsen is okay in her role, though she doesn't have much to do
except whine, so let's add Hollywood's gender blinders to the list of this
film's woes. (For the record, Sheppard was considered a better singer than
Abraham would have us believe—not great, but competent.)
I could go on, but by now you've probably seen the light.
This film bombed at the box office, gathered tepid reviews, and went to video
before it even opened at a mall near me. If you don't remember (or know) Hank
Williams, you should (re) educate yourself, but YouTube is a far better bet
than this stale slice of cornpone.
Rob Weir
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