Tom Hiddleston gets twangy in the I Saw the Light trailer: are you feeling it?

Back in early September, Tom Hiddleston was riding high. After going dark for the better part of a year, he was finally back in the spotlight with three big movies, Crimson Peak, I Saw the Light and High Rise. He headed off to Toronto with the wind in his sails and the Oscar buzz surrounding him. Then people saw the movies. Then everything sort of fell apart. Crimson Peak bombed at the box office. High Rise didn’t even get an American distribution deal. And I Saw the Light’s reviews were so bad at TIFF that the film quietly got shuffled back to the film-release dead zone of March of next year, as opposed to its original Oscar-baity release date right around now. The official excuse was that Tom had some scheduling conflicts and he wouldn’t be able to promote ISTL properly. Which was true. But it’s also true that the Oscar buzz around ISTL died a quick death as soon as critics actually saw it.

Anyway, the trailer for I Saw the Light was released today. Whoever cut the trailer deserves an award, because they make it look like a solid bio-pic. At first I was like “Ugh, his accent work is struggling,” but maybe I’m being too harsh. And they’re really pushing Elizabeth Olsen, aren’t they? Interesting. Here’s the trailer.

Sure. My question is: will this film have much of an impact? While Tom has (devoted) fans, he has not proven his leading-man skills, and I’m not sure there will be a built-in audience of any kind to see a BAD bio-pic of Hank Williams starring Lord Dragonfly. Still… good trailer.

Photos courtesy of Getty, WENN.

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