I Saw the Light appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.40:1 on this Blu-Ray Disc. The movie came with excellent visuals.
Sharpness maintained a high caliber of clarity. Virtually no softness marred the presentation, as it remained tight and well-defined. I saw no shimmering or jaggies, and both edge haloes and print flaws also failed to appear.
Can’t Hollywood at least avoid teal and orange for period biopics? Apparently not, as those tones dominated the film’s palette. Despite the tedious nature of those choices, the colors looked well-represented for what they were. Blacks seemed dark and deep, while low-light shots offered solid delineation. Everything about the transfer satisfied.
Though not as memorable, the film’s DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack worked fine for the material at hand. Music dominated and used the various speakers well. Effects got less to do and usually offered general ambience. That left us without much in terms of auditory fireworks, but given the story’s character focus, this made sense.
Overall audio quality seemed good. Speech was natural and concise. Some singing appeared a little edgy, but that felt like a conscious choice to echo the original recordings.
Music sounded peppy and full, while effects seemed acceptable. As mentioned earlier, these elements lacked much to stand out from the crowd, but they appeared accurate enough. This all added up to a “B-“ soundtrack.
The disc’s extras launch with an audio commentary from writer/director Marc Abraham. He offers a running, screen-specific look at story/characters and historical elements, cast and performances, costumes, props and period details, music, camerawork and editing, sets and locations, and various effects.
Overall, Abraham creates a good commentary. He keeps happy talk to a reasonable level - he praises the participants but he doesn't gush and he sticks with relevant topics the majority of the time. Abraham turns in a chatty, informative piece.
10 Deleted Scenes appear. Including optional introductions from Abraham, these fill a total of 22 minutes, seven seconds. (Without the intros, the segments take up 13:51.) Mostly brief, the most intriguing scenes feature Hank’s father; absent from the final cut, he doesn’t get a lot to do here, but those sequences still add a little.
Otherwise the cut snippets tend to be minor and forgettable. We get a little more detail for a few supporting characters but nothing that stands out as especially useful.
Three featurettes follow. Talking Hank goes for 21 minutes, 39 seconds and offers a chat with actor Tom Hiddleston and executive music producer Rodney Crowell. They discuss Hiddleston’s casting and approach to the role, music and Hiddleston’s training, and reflections on Hank Williams. Hiddleston dominates the chat and provides good insights about the subject matter.
Illuminating a Legend lasts 13 minutes, six seconds and includes notes from Hiddleston, Abraham, Crowell, producers G. Marq Roswell, Aaron L. Gilbert and Brett Ratner, and actors Elizabeth Olsen, Cherry Jones, and Bradley Whitford. “Legend” looks at the project’s development, cast and performances, characters and story, music, and thoughts about Hank Williams. “Legend” provides a decent overview, though we already most of the relevant thoughts elsewhere.
Finally, A Night in Nashville takes up 10 minutes, 52 seconds. It takes us to the movie’s Nashville premiere and also includes some musical performances from Hiddleston. Unless you really want to hear more of Hiddleston’s singing, you can safely skip this piece.
The disc opens with ads for The Lady in the Van, Son of Saul, Dark Horse, The Meddler and Maggie’s Plan. We also find the trailer for Light.
Outside of some good acting, I Saw the Light fails to make much of an impression. It creates a somewhat dull biopic that doesn’t bring its subject to life. The Blu-ray offers excellent visuals as well as acceptable audio and a pretty good collection of bonus materials. Light lacks much to make it an involving drama.