I'M NOT THERE (Todd Haynes, 2007) **1/2

Rating: 6/10 (3 September 2008)

To begin with, I've been a longtime fan of Bob Dylan's music; I know of the various phases his career took, but still can't consider myself an expert on him  in fact, I haven't watched any of the documentaries about the elusive musician (despite owning DON'T LOOK BACK [1967] on VHS for some time) but did get to see him in three feature films, namely PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID (1973), the concert movie THE LAST WALTZ (1978) and MASKED AND ANONYMOUS (2003).
I was aware of the acclaim garnered by Haynes' fantasia on Dylan's many 'lives' but I have to say I was left disappointed; it's not that I expected the film to be clear-cut or comprehensive (after all, the protagonist is played by six different people!) but, at the end of the day, despite its over-generous length (135 minutes), one has come no closer to understanding the man than he was before  which renders the whole enterprise not only pompous but pointless! Besides, I don't think the film benefited from renaming each personality  we're not talking about David Bowie here!  or, for that matter, some of the milieux in which they 'operated': why make him a movie star, for instance, and what about the black kid or the Western outlaw figure (how was one supposed to connect one with the other unless he knew beforehand they were supposed to be all different facets of the same man)?!
Needless to say, the music is outstanding but, frankly, there's hardly an indication of the impact Dylan's music has had over the years (apart from his early crusading folk period); okay, so the crossover to Electric was initially controversial but it subsequently changed the face of rock music foreverand, yet, Haynes seems to take all of this for granted! Another thing that doesn't work is the decision not to give each personality its own space but rather throw them all into the mix without rhyme or reason; it's a pity, then, that Haynes seems to be catering here merely to the staunchest Dylan connoisseur!
By the way, the acting is variable: Cate Blanchett's much-touted Oscar-nominated performance is good albeit overly mannered, though only Christian Bale (who gets to play two separate incarnations of Dylan) approximates the musician's famously nasal voice; Heath Ledger is typically brooding, but he's matched in his scenes by Charlotte Gainsbourg as the Sara Dylan figure; if anything, Richard Gere is ideally cast as "Billy The Kid"  but, apart from the undeniable flavor his scenes give the film, they're the most obscure in the whole scheme of things (I do like Roger Ebert's thesis, however, that what was intended here was an allegory about Dylan's perennial search for his true selfor something like that).
Still, perhaps the film's biggest fault is that it's too often a bore  surely, Dylan's real life must have been a lot more compelling than what's depicted/imagined here