The Recently Released 'I Saw The Light' Does Not See Much Of The Limelight

The release of 'I saw the Light', which is a biopic of the 1950s singer, Hank Williams, has Tom Hiddleston and Elizabeth Olsen playing the lead pair. On March 25 it opened in five theaters, through which the film picked up $50,464, averaging $10,093.

It got mostly lukewarm reviews. Said a critic, "From the time it opens in 1944 to its conclusion in 1953 (the year Williams died, on New Year's Day) Abraham never bothers to investigate what made the spina bifida-suffering country singer tick. The story is more about Williams' relationship with his first wife, Audrey (Elizabeth Olsen, and subsequent women than, say, what drove him to drink or to become an entertainer in the first place."

The script is called "lifeless" and "subpar" by many reviewers, who do not find the singer's life scintillating.

The movie is expected to open in additional markets in the coming weeks.

Playing Hank Williams is Tom Hiddleston, an Oxbridge and Eton classmate of Prince William. How did he bag the role of Hank Williams? Strangely, it is said that Hiddleston "looked like" Williams.

"I saw him in War Horse, and thought he looked a lot like Hank Williams," 'I Saw the Light' director Marc Abraham said of Hiddleston. "And my casting director said, 'You've got to make sure he can do the accent,' and over a three-hour dinner [Hiddleston] showed me his imitation of Owen Wilson."

Hence, he was at once chosen to do the role of Hank Williams opposite Elizabeth Olsen in 'I Saw the Light', the brief, short tragedy.

The story goes that Hiddleston also played American icon F. Scott Fitzgerald, right opposite Wilson in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. He struck up a good relationship with Wilson. "I'd done it in the past," he said. "The first time it happened, I was just telling a story about the Midnight in Paris shoot. It's something I've always done when I tell stories. I naturally do all the voices."

He also agreed to do a good impression of Thor, Chris Hemsworth. "I've done it in front of him. He thinks it's hilarious," said Hiddleston. "Chris is one of my best friends. Making the first Thor film was just a novel experience for both of us, we became firm friends and remain so."