Bad man makes good music. Or, perhaps more strangely, sad man makes happy music. (Spoiler alert: we don’t hear the plaintive croon of “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” until the closing credits. Instead, we see and hear a rousing rendition of “Hey Good Lookin’.”) Screenwriter and director Marc Abraham’s biopic of country legend Hank Williams gives us a poor young Southern boy with a mostly absent father, a domineering mother, and a gal (Elizabeth Olsen, largely wasted) with showbiz ambitions of her own. And then he doesn’t do much with him besides tick off memorable moments. There’s some drinkin’, some cheatin’, some yellin’, and some cryin’. But there ain’t nothin' here that explains why, as Williams tells us, all kinds of people write to him just to share their troubles. Tom Hiddleston nails the voice and the physicality of the hard-living Williams, but whiffs the heartbreak, the charm, and the ruin that might have made this picture matter some. (2016) — Matthew Lickona
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