Marc Abraham, for his second film as director (prior to that, he was a veteran producer), has chosen his second consecutive mid-20th-century biography, following 2008’s Flash of Genius with I SAW THE LIGHT, which premiered tonight at the Toronto Film Festival and will open in theatres in November. The life of country music star Hank Williams (played in the film by Tom Hiddleston) has certainly given him more meat to chew on than the saga of the man who invented a certain type of windshield wiper. What the film lacks, though, is the illumination promised by its title.
Abraham is nothing if not dogged about recounting the last 8 years of Williams’ tragically short life. Working from his own script, he frequently puts dates on the bottom of the screen, so that we’ll know for sure whether an event occurred in March 1951 or August 1952. Nor has he shied away from the darker side of Williams’ actions, which included professional irresponsibilty, frequent infidelity to his wife Audrey (Elizabeth Olsen), crippling alcoholism and misuse of drugs prescription and otherwise. In concentrating on the details of Williams’ behavioral trees, though, Abraham has lost sight of the flowering forest of his work. Although we hear plenty of Williams’ singing (all recreated remarkably by Hiddleston), there’s very little in the film to suggest why Williams was different from any other talented, self-destructive music star, or why 60 years later, his work is acclaimed by rock stars as well as Nashville. Until a sequence very near the end, there’s hardly any connection made between Williams’ songs and his life–he might as well be performing songs assigned to him by his label–and Abraham seems to have no interest in arriving at a thesis for why his protagonist’s personal life was such a disaster.
The film is precise but perfunctory, moving from scene to scene with little momentum other than the death-watch of Williams looking worse and worse as his lifestyle and illnesses (spina bifida and probably a heart condition) cause him to deteriorate. Hiddleston’s performance is excellent but also wasted, because the script lacks the kind of depth that can make a biographical portrayal feel like a possession rather than an impersonation. Olsen brings some spark to early scenes, her Audrey carrying ambitions into the marriage for a singing career of her own that outreach the quality of her voice. But before long, Audrey becomes just another stock long-suffering showbiz spouse, full of recrimination every time hubby comes back from the road. Maddie Hasson, as Williams’ 19-year old second wife has even less to do, and although Cherry Jones seems to be playing something specific as Williams’ mother, the character never comes into focus and eventually fades out of the picture.
One of the problems that can arise when a producer becomes a director is that he needs a producer, and although several (including Brett Ratner) are attached to I See The Light, none of them seem to have taken on the hard job of bringing in another writer. Abraham has provided the outline of a film that could have been great, with fine acting and solid cinematography (by Dante Spinotti) and period production design (by Rob Simons) and costumes (by Lahly Poore-Ericson), but he’s left out the greatness–including the very greatness that the story should have been about.
About the Author
