Once set to have arrived in theaters last week, Sony Pictures Classics decided to move I Saw the Light, the Hank Williams biopic which finds Tom Hiddleston in the leading role, to 2016. Coming from longtime producer Marc Abraham (Children of Men, Dawn of the Dead), whose directorial debut was Flash of Genius, the film will now arrive in March and today brings the first trailer.
We said in our review, “The opening to Marc Abraham‘s I Saw the Light holds a lot of intrigue. Based on Colin Escott‘s biography about hillbilly legend Hank Williams, the start goes from a faux black and white newsreel interview with producer Fred Rose (Bradley Whitford) recounting how one-of-a-kind the singer was to a magically lit performance by Tom Hiddleston as Williams (the actor sings every note and the actors playing his band pluck every string). He’s sitting on a stool with a hazy spotlight pouring down, his chiaroscuro silhouette against the darkened audience foreshadowing the drama to come. It had me preparing for something truly special, but sadly the film proved familiar instead.”
Also starring Elizabeth Olsen, Bradley Whitford, David Krumholtz, and Cherry Jones, check out the trailer below.
TIFF’s official description:
Hank Williams wrote and recorded some of country music’s most enduring songs before his untimely death at age twenty-nine. These songs were fuelled by a blend of turmoil and heartbreak — not surprising considering the Alabama-born balladeer’s private life, which director Marc Abraham brings to the screen with a clear-eyed appreciation of the man’s complexity. Taking stock of the central moments in Williams’ too-short career, which began when he was barely a teenager, I Saw the Light focuses, as it should, on the flaws of an artist who was endearing to his audience and enraging to his wives and lovers.
At the core of this film is Tom Hiddleston’s magnificent performance as Hank. Not only does the English actor capture the singer’s charm and caprice, he also sings all the songs.(Hiddleston appears elsewhere at the Festival in Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise.)
When Hank marries Audrey Mae Sheppard (Elizabeth Olsen) at a gas station in 1944, success is only a few years away, but Audrey proves a challenge as she replaces Hank’s mother as the prime influence in his career. Though ambitious, Audrey is a woman of limited talent, and Williams is caught between listening to friends who tell him to remove her from his act and a wife who will listen to no one.
With fame, Williams grows increasingly erratic in his behaviour as alcoholism and drug abuse begin to take their toll. And yet the story really gets rolling when, at one of his concerts, Hank spies the young Billie Jean (Maddie Hasson), an aspiring singer who will eventually become his widow.
I Saw the Light opens on March 25th.