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I Saw the Light (2015)

Biography | 123 minutes
2,83 63 votes

Genre: Biography / Music

Duration: 123 minuten

Country: United States

Directed by: Marc Abraham

Stars: Tom Hiddleston, Elizabeth Olsen and David Krumholtz

IMDb score: 5,8 (8.951)

Releasedate: 5 February 2016

I Saw the Light plot

"The story of Hank Williams"

'I Saw the Light' is about the life of legendary country singer Hank Williams, who in his short life recorded country classics such as 'Your Cheatin' Heart', 'Hey Good Lookin' and 'Cold, Cold Heart'. The film tells the story of his meteoric rise, fame and ultimately the tragic effect on his health and personal life.

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Full Cast & Crew

Actors and actresses

Hank Williams

Audrey Mae Williams

Toby Marshall

Bobbie Jett

Dore Schary

Lillie Williams

Oscar Davis

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avatar

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avatar van Harley Quinn

Harley Quinn

  • 110 messages
  • 65 votes

Nice review, Zwolle84!

The day before yesterday I watched this biopic. A bit of history: I grew up with pure country music. As a child, my parents dragged me to performances throughout the country, where I heard the late Boxcar Willie sing beautiful performances of Williams - straight from the heart, as it should be - and even received a kiss on the hand from the good man afterwards (which I obviously thought it was 'ew' at the time).

Pure country is indeed without embellishment: it is raw emotion - sometimes bitter, sometimes underlying, but always sincere. You can easily pick out the real one. They don't need a showcase; just a stage and a guitar. The beauty lies in that simplicity.

Although I later discovered and embraced other music genres, I notice that those country roots will always stay with me. In between the Indie songs, a 'good ol' country song regularly blares from my speakers, the lyrics of which I can sing along to without thinking.

Fantastic performances by Hiddleston and Olsen. Never too much, never too little, with integrity and as human as flesh and blood.

Personally, I can't understand why others would label this as boring. I watched the entire film mesmerized and watched it in one breath, thinking back to the good old days when I sat at the kitchen table every Saturday morning, listening with intrigue to the emotional performances of great yet small artists. I Saw the Light brought me back to that special world. The film touched me, reopened my roots... and then, you're doing something right.

Enjoyed!

dutch flagTranslated from Dutch · View original

avatar van ROX

ROX

  • 48 messages
  • 854 votes

The film drags on, is repetitive and cannot match "Walk the Line" or "A Star is Born". Tom Hiddleston acts very well, carries the film and also sings a nice note.

dutch flagTranslated from Dutch · View original

avatar van Roger Thornhill

Roger Thornhill

  • 6011 messages
  • 2445 votes

Good acting, beautiful time and beautiful photography, and the story also follows fairly closely the biography of Colin Escott on which the film is based, but I can't call this a really good film, because afterwards (and also during the I don't feel like I've gotten a glimpse into Williams' soul, so to speak. The reason for this is certainly not Tom Hiddleston, because he is a very convincing Hank Williams (despite the fact that his singing voice does not have the unpolished roughness of the real Hank Williams), but the music, or rather the partial absence of it.
I don't get to hear enough of the enormous amount of great songs that Williams recorded during his short life, some of which might contain direct references to his own life and his marital problems (Why should we try anymore, [i ]Cold cold heart[/i], You win again, I'll never get out of this world alive), and so I have no idea where those songs come from come from and what Williams' specific brille consists of. Moreover, I don't see him drinking enough (yes, there are several scenes in which he drinks or is drunk, but in Escott's book the alcohol almost runs off the pages), the black and white scenes in which Bradley Whitford's Fred Rose commentary sometimes clashes with the rest of the film, and the absence of a death scene (filmed in any way) feels to me like a black hole in the structure of the film, as if the main character is secretly off stage ended while the performance is still in progress.
I believe it was on MovieMeter that I first read the phrase "I'm a bit lost", as a description of unmet expectations or a feeling of disappointment afterwards. Let me say about this film that I remain a bit thirsty.

dutch flagTranslated from Dutch · View original