The creative construct and delivery make it both flawed and fascinating but is still a great total film despite this

Rating: Null/10 (1 March 2009)

A biopic of Bob Dylan seemed like it would be of interest because, as much as I did like No Direction Home, I did think it needed more meat on the bones for those not already informed. Long before I saw I'm Not There I knew it was not going to be played that way but the multiple actors and fact it was a Todd Haynes film made me curious to see how it would be done. Answering my own question by watching the film, I was pleased to find that it was done in a wonderfully creative and fascinating way that works so well as a creative project that it is hard to imagine how it could have been done any other way.
Rather than make a straight biopic, Haynes and Moverman have taken events and themes from Dylan's life and created characters that echo this and delivered a patchwork of stories that play like different characters, the idea being that Dylan has had so many stages and faces in his life that this is the best way to do it. What this does is produce a film that is rich with creative ideas and is delivered by the same people who had them  hence feeding them on the screen and making it engaging. In the construct it is almost impossible to criticise because it is so clever and fascinating in its creativity. Likewise the delivery is great, with different styles employed across the threads all producing an experience that I found to be really effective.
Sadly, as with most of my reviews, there is a "but" on its way. As with Safe, the delivery from Haynes makes the film but it has a knock-on effect on the story being told. In this case the downside is in the actual biopic element of the film and I would suggest that the film will only work in this regard for those Dylan fans coming to it with knowledge of his life and career. For me I know the bigger picture sweep of his career and know many of the key moments but far from everything. As a result some of the threads were lost on me and some of them didn't work as well as others. A bit of a problem if you are looking for the film to engage in the content as well as be an experience  which, at over two hours, I was.
As with the threads I didn't think all the actors did as well as each other. Blanchett does the best but in fairness is helped by having the most accessible thread for those coming to Dylan off the back of general popular culture. Her Dylan character is convincing and she plays it very well. Franklin was also engaging as his performance (acting and singing) was interesting. I though Ledger, Bale and Gere were not as good and I was a little disappointed considering how good at least two of these can be. In fairness though I was less engaged by their threads in the film and perhaps this reflected on their performance from my point of view.
I'm Not There is a really great film though and it deserves to be seen for the reasons that it is great but you should not go into it unprepared for some aspects of it not being great. The concept, construct and delivery is fascinatingly creative but this approach affects the telling of the story and there are parts of the film that simply don't work and don't engage. However, if you come to it right, the film is more than good enough to cover for this seemingly important flaw and, as a creative project and experience, it is hard to fault and deserves to be seen.