Review of I'm Not There (2007) by Jennifer X — 27 Jul 2011

Not an orthodox biopic at all. It's jumbled (not necessarily in a bad way) and a host of different actors play 'aspects' of Bob Dylan from different points in his career. What further confuses things is that his real name is never used - each actor's role is given a different fictional name, which I feel is just highly confusing and pointless. Why not call him by his real name.

I'm not even sure all of these different parts of Bob Dylan ever actually existed, or whether some are completely fabricated, perhaps based on some of his ideals. I can understand getting a woman to play him - and Blanchett does a great job here and is perhaps the best of the lot - but one of them is a little black kid hitching rides and playing guitar (while in another scene we're told he grew up with a conventional family, which contradicts this orphaned vagabond notion) and another is an aged Richard Gere playing a similarly adrift traveller who wonders amidst rural folk and hitch-hikes on trains, like the boy did. I therefore doubt either of these two happened to the man, but I can't be sure, which makes everything unnecessarily confusing.

You have to commend them for creating this very unique effort though, to reflect what seemed like a very unique and complex man. They didn't stick to the theoretical biopic rule book here at all, and the results are good, but unfortunately just not great. I really loved those 7 rules for a life in hiding and immediately looked up the Dylan poem they originated from while watching the film.