I Saw the Light

CinemaSerf 7/23/2024 11:00:02AM 8.4

In theory this had loads to recommend it. A young man who captivated the USA with his music, an handsome and charismatically flawed gent who lived his life to the full, philandered, cheated and drank... How, then, did Marc Abraham manage to turn all that into a stodgy television movie? The ever easy on the eye Tom Hiddleston takes the title role and does precisely nothing with it. His mimicry of the style of performing - that slightly chicken-strutting jig he did whilst singing, works well enough but otherwise this is a shallow and lacklustre characterisation. Williams could never have been called a loyal man and the women who featured prominently here - wife Audrey (Elisabeth Olsen), Bobbie (Wrenn Schmidt) and Billie Jean (Maddie Hasson) have precious little to work with to add much depth to this puddle of a biopic. It has a go at creating a documentary feel to it, incorporating some monochrome (and monotone) contributions from Bradey Whitford's version of producer Fred Rose and there is plenty of toe-tapping - especially the fiddlers, but at just over the two hour mark this is a ponderously feeble effort to enliven a man by an actor who spent way too much time in wardrobe and nowhere near enough trying to imbue the subject with personality. "Walk the Line" (2005) it isn't.