It's a decent film

Rating: 7/10 (6 December 2007)

This was smartly written and acted with supreme dedication. This is not some artsy-fartsy junk; this is a complicated and tightly woven production.
It's not a hagiography of Bob Dylan or his music - this movie is better than that. Dylan is seen through the lives of 6 (or 7) characters, each to represent something in Dylan realistically. Every character has faults and very few characters are completely likable.
Cate Blanchett will receive acclaim for her role as "Jude Quinn". Apart from the fact that she really looks like Dylan, her performance was wonderful. It's a very complicated role, but she pulled it off. It's an Oscar-worthy performance.
Heath Ledger's "Robbie Clark" was also very well done. (Though his character seems more based on James Dean than it is on Bob Dylan.) I found his portrayal to be the most honest and authentic of the movie. A whole feature could be made simply on Ledger's character and the dissolving of his marriage.
Unfortunately many of the other characters and story lines don't work or are simply confusing. This makes the film longer than it has to be, and not as good as it should be.
The picture was directed and co-written by Todd Haynes. He was Oscar-nominated for writing FAR FROM HEAVEN (2002), which is a stunning character study about social mores in 1950s suburbia.
Co-writing with Haynes was Oren Moverman, who has only written two features before this.