denis888
Where to start here? I'm Not There is a very daunting, serious, far- fetching, high;y intellectual, brainy and at the same time, painful, awkward, clumsy, weird and sometimes sick movie with elements of great and gross, high and haughty, likable and lecherous, sweet and sick, fine and foolish. It reminded me heavily of Oliver Stone's Nixon, with its spiraling, non-linear, crazy pace, feedback, change of colors, abrupt jumps, foreshadowing, unexpected twists and all the same. Is this movie any good? Yes, it is. The performances of multitude of actors are all spellbinding and breathtaking - Marcus Carl Franklin, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw,Charlotte Gainsbourg , David Cross, Eugene Brotto, Bruce Greenwood, Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams, Mark Camacho, Benz Antoine , Craig Thomas, Richie Havens, Kim Roberts, Kris Kristofferson, Don Francks, Vito DeFilippo and Susan Glover, Paul Spence - an amazing array of huge talents and powerful bandwagon of artistry. Music is excellent throughout, too - the original Dylan's songs as well as new tracks are just superb. What is also good here - excellent play of allusions to Dylan's life - Newport fest, Judas shout, family problems, The Beatles, drugs, poetry, Tarantula, many other things are thrilling and a real eye- feast for Dylan fans. What is bad? Uneven pace, some mannerisms, some really vapid moments, some unnecessary longer monologues, some utterly silly moments at all - they spoil the party much. But still, even 2 hours are not long here and the movie flows almost (almost) seamlessly. Pity, it was not cut to a closer perfection. But, it is very hard to make a decent biopic. I do recommend this to Dylan buffs, to folk rock fans... the rest? Maybe, not. Todd Haynes has made a great work, but not all are ready to see Dylan played by a woman.
billcr12
First and foremost, Bob Dylan is a genius and a perfect subject for interpretation. A great idea with mixed results in I'm Not There. Cate Blanchett opens as Jude Quinn, a mid 1960s era Dylan getting on stage but quickly shown in a motorcycle accident. The British actress looks uncannily like the folk singer, especially in silhouette. Marcus Carl Franklin portrays Woody Guthrie and the eleven year old boy proves to be a major talent. He travels the country by train and in a time shift travels to a hospital to perform a song for the real Woody Guthrie. Christian Bale is in a documentary style portion as fans praise the great artist as the voice of a generation as he treats and reporters with contempt. Bobby does not come off to well as a human being.Later on, Bale reappears as a born again pastor, which showcases Dylan's brief Christian period , preaching to a congregation and singing the gospel tune "Pressing On" from the album "Saved."Heath Ledger is in a film within the film as an actor playing the Christian Bale character in the least interesting part of I'm Not There. The second unnecessary segment is Richard Gere as Billy the Kid looking for his dog and meeting Pat Garrett and a convoluted storyline with a funeral, a jail break and back to the train once again. I found the whole experience a disjointed mess with some fine acting. I love Dylan's work, so this is a wasted effort.
ryancarroll88
If there was was ever a film that could embody Bob Dylan, this is it, and that being said it is no means a biography. Rather than trying to encapsulate Dylan's life in any serial fashion, Todd Haynes opts to intersperse the different incarnations of the singer in both his music and personal life, imbuing surrealism and pure fiction to explain the chaos of his life. That being said, I wouldn't recommend this movie to people who aren't familiar with Bob Dylan or the musical movements of the 1960s-1970s; references like Pete Seeger trying to chop the electric cables with an axe at the Newport Folk Festival or tongue-in-cheek humor such as Dylan shouting at Jesus on the cross to "bring back your old stuff" would definitely go over most people's heads without any background.
Benoît A. Racine (benoit-3)
This was an audacious concept. Having Bob Dylan portrayed by half a dozen different actors assuming fictionalized personas. As if the real Bob Dylan wasn't full enough of terminal contradictions. But as the producers of this boring, pretentious mess could only paraphrase and not quote directly from any documented reality (what is reality?) except Dylan's songs, of course, the film looses itself in the meanders of absolute arbitrariness and sundry parallel universes in spite of the best efforts of some worthy actors and talents. I lived through the sixties and Dylan's rise to celebrity and I didn't recognize anything of my perceptions of him in this film, probably because either the film or Dylan himself (who knows, right?) is more preoccupied by the flotsam and jetsam of terminal hype, the fame game and/or celebrity rehab scenarios to actually care what a man's music is supposed to mean (if anything). If you ever saw anything worthy in Dylan's music, you'll think twice about his talent after seeing this film. If you always thought he was a fake and a flake, your opinion will not be seriously challenged by this delirious and wasteful Actors' Studio job-creating program.
