The movie guy I trust and agree with, Mick LaSalle in the SF Chronicle wrote this:
Six Bob Dylan characters in search of an author(instead of a star rating system, The Chronicle has a 'little man' rating system--the 'little man' is snoozing in his chair--the only worse one is an empty chair)
Mick LaSalle, Chronicle Movie Critic
Wednesday, November 21, 20
I'm Not There: Imaginative biopic. Starring Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Richard Gere. Directed by Todd Haynes. (R. 135 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)
Anyone can make a bad movie, but it takes a good filmmaker to make one as bad as "I'm Not There." Todd Haynes, who directed and co-wrote it, takes a misbegotten idea and pursues it with the kind of zeal and imagination not available to mediocre filmmakers.
Haynes made "Far From Heaven," a successful film with the same quality of meticulous obsession about it, but this time, when he went out on a limb, the limb broke.
Going out on a limb is admirable. Haynes belongs there. He should go back there in the future. But recognizing that doesn't mean having to pretend that a failure isn't a failure.
The idea was to do a semifictional autobiography of Bob Dylan in which six actors play the singer-songwriter in his various incarnations. Haynes has done exactly that, but the resulting film is snore-inducing, a bore that zigzags through time, overstays its welcome and is so narratively scattered that it could begin and end anywhere without an appreciable difference in impact.
Of the Dylans, Cate Blanchett's is the best. She plays the Dylan of the mid-1960s, when he was turning away from protest music and going electric, a rock star Dylan (here named Jude) reminiscent of his incarnation in D.A. Pennebaker's "Don't Look Back." Blanchett doesn't emphasize the dress-up aspect of the role, but plays it straight and captures Dylan's youthful arrogance, as well as his delightful habit of speaking nonsense to the press as though uttering profundities: "Good and evil were invented by people trapped in scenes." Hmm. Makes you think.
Jude becomes impressed only once, when he meets up with Allen Ginsberg and is awed, presumably at encountering someone even more full of baloney than he is. Though "I'm Not There" seems intended as the opposite of a hatchet job, Haynes' version of Dylan is that of an obnoxious, self-absorbed, ungiving man, spouting relativist mumbo jumbo in his public utterances.
Despite all the talk of Dylan's ever-changing personality, he remains consistent on one score: He's a creep. Still, there's no denying his talent. Though Blanchett performs Dylan's songs well, the movie only comes alive in the bridges between scenes, in which Dylan's own voice is heard on the soundtrack.
Along with Al Jolson, Ronald Reagan and Truman Capote, Dylan is one of the four people everyone on Earth can imitate - that is, everyone except Christian Bale, who plays the folk Dylan (and later comes back as the born-again Christian Dylan), here known as Jack Rollins. When Bale imitates Dylan, he sounds a lot like George W. Bush. Notice this. It helps pass the time.
The celebrity Dylan, the one who must deal with the temptations and pressures of fame, is played by Heath Ledger. Robbie, as he's called here, marries a French girl, played by the luminous Anglo-French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, who gives herself a French accent for this role, even though in real life she doesn't have one. Notice how she loses it and reverts to perfect English in her big emotional moments. That also helps pass the time.
Ben Whishaw's youthful Dylan (known as Arthur) is negligible. He sits in a chair, smokes and talks about Arthur Rimbaud. Dylan's boyhood is evoked by Marcus Carl Franklin as Woody, an 11-year-old who rides the rails, plays guitar and talks about Woody Guthrie. The kid's a find, and someday he'll find a better showcase.
Richard Gere has the misfortune of appearing in the film's most deadly dull scenes, as the older Dylan, presented here as Billy the Kid, trapped inside some latter-day version of the 1973 movie "Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid." In keeping with the scrupulousness with which he approaches everything, Haynes makes sure these scenes have the look, the color saturation and cinematic style of a 1970s film. But noting that is not the same as enjoying it. By the time "I'm Not There" arrives at this stage, it has already lost its audience.
Yet one thing should be said on the film's behalf. "I'm Not There" could be looked at as a movie made for a specific, narrow demographic, but that's being exhibited to everybody as a concession to economic reality. Dylan's most rabid longtime fans might very well relish the chance for generational nostalgia and delight in catching the obscure references - even to the point of overlooking the movie's static quality.
Point being, if you love and revere Dylan's work - and particularly if you're of a certain age - you just might like "I'm Not There," anyway.
-- Advisory: This film contains nudity and strong language.
