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 ca...

I Saw the Light (2015) opens with what appears to be archival footage of a record executive explaining why he liked Hank Williams: Hank didn’t care whether people liked him or not. An interesting observation, perhaps, but it raises a question the film never answers: if Hank didn’t care whether people liked him, why should we care whether this guy or anyone else did or didn’t?

After the opening credits, we’re introduced to Hank Williams (Tom Hiddleston) and Audrey Williams (Elizabeth Olsen) on their wedding day. Both actors feel fundamentally miscast. Hiddleston occasionally has to r...