All grump, no fun

Rating: 6/10 (27 December 2007)

This movie does a great job of capturing Bob Dylan's angry, annoyed, snide, and generally unpleasant side, but shows nothing of the fun side - the closest that it comes is a brief shot of Dylan (portrayed by Cate Blanchett this time) cavorting with The Beatles, circa "A Hard Day's Night," but even that devolves into an unhappy, drugged-out scene of Dylan stomping all over everyone's emotions, including his own. Come to think of it, that's how many of the scenes end up... Richard Gere's character is interesting, but was probably the least connected to any side of Dylan that I know. Young Marcus Carl Franklin was good, until he turned into something of a fraud. Ben Whishaw, Christian Bale, and Heath Ledger were convincing, but no fun. Where was the Bob Dylan who enjoyed life, who joked with his friends rather than insulting them, who toyed with journalists (as opposed to berating them), where was the obvious joy of "Everybody Must Get Stoned"? My sneaky suspicion is that director/writer Todd Haynes doesn't actually like Dylan-the-man, even if he admires Dylan-the-songwriter (and singer, and poet, and all those other great things that Dylan's known for). So he made a mean-spirited movie, and spent a lot of time and effort on playing with the camera, and missed a big chunk of life.