November 13, 2024

Opinion: ‘I Saw the Light’ misses the mark

Hannah Hitzfield reviews the Hank Williams biopic “I Saw the Light.”

Regal Downtown West Photo by Ryan McGill

Marc Abraham, director of “I Saw the Light,” did a mediocre job at telling the biography of the country-western singer Hank Williams. The movie is supposed to portray the life of a man who created the greatest bodies of work in American music, but it falls flat. It attempts to show the country-western singer’s rise to fame and the obstacles he faced along the way, but unfortunately the movie just leaves its audience confused.

A lot of the major events in Williams’ life were presented so briefly that one could not grasp their importance. For example, we see that Hank has some substance abuse issues but we don’t know with what exactly, for how long or why. The movie could have easily been depicting anyone. It was not unique in any way other then the audience received a tad bit of taste of Williams’ music throughout the entire film.

Tom Hiddleston plays Williams and lacks the ability to create a one of a kind country singer. Hiddleston plays a great addict and does a fine job at representing a poor husband, but cant seem to bring to life Williams’ true character that millions of fans love.

The movie basically compiled significant events into a two hour movie without giving the singer any proper recognition. It leads us to believe that Wiliams had a boring life, which seems impossible due to the fact that he was 25-years-old when he started to reach fame and died four short years later. Overall, “I Saw the Light” had no substance and did a poor job at telling the life of an iconic figure.

Featured image by Ryan McGill

Edited by Taylor Owens

The opinion of our writers/bloggers are not a reflection of the opinion of the Tennessee Journalist as a whole.