Otherwise known as the guy who plays that gender-fluid villain who wears antlers in The Avengers.
...You know, this guy.
Most recently this British actor has starred in the film I Saw the Light about that yodeling country singer from the 50's who drank too much and croaked in the back of his car.
...You know, this guy.
Better known as Hank Williams. Not Hank Williams Jr. Although I think they may be distantly related.
I Saw the Light traces Hank's career from the moment he married his freshly-divorced, manipulative attention whore of a wife (played by the lesser-known, lesser-of-a-train wreck Olsen triplet, Elizabeth Olsen) in an Alabama gas station to his rise to fame by yodeling sad songs on the radio, then at the Grand Ole Opry and then ruining it all by boozing it up and swallowing a few dozen pharmacies' supply worth of pain pills and dying on his way to a concert. Indeed, his tale is a tragic one, and incidentally so is the film.
It's a shameful trope these famous musicians create for these biopics. A humble aspiring young fella/gal who just wants to sing innocent songs is discovered, rises to fame, is exposed to the horrible corrupting world of sex and drugs and rock and roll, spirals out of control, hits rock bottom, then with some help from loved ones and ~*~true fans~*~ rehabilitates, gets back on the wagon and becomes and older, wiser, more haggard, less attractive role model for fans who have mostly already moved on to worship the next up-and-coming act. ...Or just dies. Like in this movie. Yeah, spoiler alert. Hank dies. If you didn't already know that, then you clearly didn't read anything I wrote above, and you also need to brush up on your dead celebrity trivia.
Being a Brit, Tom actually did a pretty spot-on impression of Hank. And Elizabeth Olsen did a great job not mimicking her sisters' career by landing a role in a movie that wasn't a straight-to-video release. And also she must have paid attention in her acting classes because she did a good job with that aspect too. That being said, the acting was just about the only saving grace of this film. The rest of it felt like someone got lazy in the editing room and shortened all the important parts but kept intact the fifteen minute scenes of boring nonsense.
Also the film did the thing that Frost/Nixon did where it will randomly cut to an "interview" of another character talking about the scene you just saw. Like the audience is supposed to think that these are real interviews instead of actors they just saw a minute ago.
Even though the film is based on people's real lives and actual events, it didn't seem very believable. The most unbelievable part in the whole movie was the final scene. And if you don't like spoilers and you really have any iota of interest in seeing this film in its entirety...don't skip this paragraph, because you deserve to hear the truth. READ IT! DON'T LOOK AWAY!! In the final scene there's an audience anxiously waiting at a Hank concert. Someone in charge approaches the microphone and announces that Hank had died on the way to the concert. (The death scene isn't even shown. This is how we hear about it.) After the announcement, the audience remains unsettlingly calm, then after a moment breaks out into the eponymous song in what's supposed to be a very moving moment. It took me completely out of the movie! I'm sorry, but if I paid money to see a concert and someone just announced that the guy I paid to see died on the way here, I'd be screaming for a refund. But there was none of that! Plus there was no dramatic death scene, no funeral scene, no slow mo shots of people weeping, no freeze frame of Hank's smiling face...just credits. Such a disappointing and abrupt end. But maybe that's the point. Maybe the film maker wanted to disappoint the audience as much as the fans were disappointed in Hank's sudden and untimely, yet highly predictable death. Maybe the filmmaker wanted movie-goers to be outraged and feel robbed and angry at the world and at God who took away such a talented man from the earth and instead gave us his offspring who asks us if we're ready for some football.
Well, filmmaker, you succeeded. Pat yourself on the back. I was only -35 years old at the time of Hank's death, but I felt like you really underscored the agony and torment the world experienced by agonizing and torturing me. Well done, sir. Well done.
But I won't end this little blurb on a sour note. Instead I'll provide you a picture of Hank Williams' house that I took from a tour bus in Nashville. If you look closely at the middle window, you can see Hank's ex-wife giving the finger.
Hahahaha you totally looked, don't lie.
And here's a picture of me and some hot guy at the Grand Ole Opry. Also in Nashville and also Willie Nelson is giving the finger.
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