While this is a fun movie, I don't feel like it's telling all the truth, basically an ex-wife's denial of her late husband's life, especially the fact that she wasn't his only wife and the feeling that she was a bulldozer over much of their marriage. You definitely see that in the performance of Susan Oliver, playing Audrey Williams as a wife who tried to mother him and comes off as a smotherer. Probably not the sympathetic viewpoint she wanted to be seen as.
As for George Hamilton's grinning boyish take on the king of early country music, he lipsinks just fine and is charming, but the legend is far too perfect, even with obvious flaws. The film had been in production in one aspect or another since Hank's death over a decade before, and it's black and white photography makes it seem like a variation of the 1952 Warner Brothers Will Rogers biography, rather generic and by the numbers with no real courage or grit.
That makes this serviceable but not much more, and it would take decades for the real truths to come out. This leads the focus on the music as the best aspect of the film, with the heartwarming songs obviously standing the test of time even 70+ years after they were first heard. Rex Ingram adds pathos in the early scenes as the dying black mentor of Hank's childhood but it would have been nice to see really how that impacted Williams' persona and life.
As for George Hamilton's grinning boyish take on the king of early country music, he lipsinks just fine and is charming, but the legend is far too perfect, even with obvious flaws. The film had been in production in one aspect or another since Hank's death over a decade before, and it's black and white photography makes it seem like a variation of the 1952 Warner Brothers Will Rogers biography, rather generic and by the numbers with no real courage or grit.
That makes this serviceable but not much more, and it would take decades for the real truths to come out. This leads the focus on the music as the best aspect of the film, with the heartwarming songs obviously standing the test of time even 70+ years after they were first heard. Rex Ingram adds pathos in the early scenes as the dying black mentor of Hank's childhood but it would have been nice to see really how that impacted Williams' persona and life.