Elizabeth Olsen and Tom Hiddleston in I Saw the Light (Sam Emerson/Sony Pictures Classics)

This passion project by Kentucky native writer-director-producer Marc Abraham is certainly better than the 1964 Hollywood biopic Your Cheatin’ Heart, which starred George Hamilton as Hiram King “Hank” Williams. Based on the book Hank Williams: The Biography, I Saw the Light conveys the correct facts about its subject’s complicated personal life and health problems. British actor Tom Hiddleston doesn’t overdo Hank’s Alabama accent, and he’s suitably spirited when re-creating the radio, early TV, and Grand Ole Opry performances of many of Williams’s signature songs, including the legendary and influential “Hey Good Lookin’,” “Why Don’t You Love Me,” “Jambalaya,” and more.

Williams’s story is narrated by his record producer and song publisher Fred Rose (Bradley Whitford, in a lot of make-up) in the style of a 1953 black-and-white interview. However, the focus isn’t really about the recording of the music, so much as the truth behind Hank’s lyrics, which are replete with themes of flirtation and heartbreak. The singer certainly had plenty of bitchy women in his life to draw material from, and the actresses relish their ball-busting roles.

Seen first in December 1945, his domineering and ambitious mother, Jessie Lillybelle Skipper “Lillie” Williams Stone (Cherry Jones as a battle-ax), is the first woman who tries to manage Hank’s career, money, and life. That includes getting him up and out of her house at dawn to sing commercial jingles for radio shows and arranging his gigs and sales.

Audrey Sheppard Guy (Elizabeth Olsen) is ready to push the mother out of the driver’s seat, even before the divorce from her previous husband is finalized. She’s eager to spend Hank’s money and to jump on stage with him—except that she can’t sing at all. As cute as Audrey is in her matching cowgirl outfit, her off-key warbling hurts his marketability, even as she loudly blames him for blocking her career. Their volatile relationship (complete with a “cheatin’ heart”) plays out for a long, grating time on screen, and the character of Audrey remains annoying through her pregnancy (with Hank Williams Jr., whose career she will similarly seek to control), her and Hank’s divorce and remarriage, and their fights over their son. Before their second divorce is final, Hank juggles a couple of younger women: Bobbie Jett (Maddie Hasson), who also gets pregnant, and Billie Jean Jones (Wrenn Schmidt), whom he marries in 1952.

At only 23, Hank and his band, the Drifting Cowboys, are headed for the big time in Nashville, although his alcoholism is already getting him a bad reputation in the music business. Between drinking bouts and visits to remote sanitariums to dry out (which never work for long, since Hank also suffers from various ill-treated congenital ailments including spina bifida, prompting booze binges to dull the constant pain), he appears on the radio show Louisiana Hayride, rides up the charts, and arrives on country music’s pinnacle stage: the Opry. Then the movie chronicles his slide back down again.

Unfortunately, while I Saw the Light checks off all the major highlights of Williams’s life—including his guest spots on newly-trending TV variety shows broadcast nationwide—the film never really delves into how condescending the media was to “hillbilly” music, nor how fresh and different Hank sounded compared to Nashville contemporaries, such as Faron Young and Ray Price (who are portrayed in cameos as up-and-coming stars).

Ultimately, I Saw the Light doesn’t reach the same heights as the best country music biopics Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980) and Walk the Line (2005). Audiences would be forgiven if their impression of Hank was that of a charming drunk who recorded a few catchy ditties and died before he was 30 years old. At least his death is nicely de-mythologized from such tribute songs as Alan Jackson’s “Midnight in Montgomery,” and the footage from his actual all-star funeral is touching. But it’s a shame the filmmakers didn’t focus more on their subject’s place in the landscape of American music. In not capturing the essence of the music, the movie can break your heart like a country song.