Movie Review: I'm Not There (2007, Todd Haynes)

***

Cast: Christian Bale, Ben Whishaw, Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Marcus Carl Franklin, Heath Ledger, Kris Kristofferson, Julianne Moore, Peter Friedman, Charlotte Gainsbourg
Screenplay: Oren Moverman and Todd Haynes
135 minutes / Black & White and Color

How can I even start describing director Todd Haynes’ “I’m Not There”? Did I miss something because I really feel like I didn’t understand the movie? To begin with, the plot line was EVERYWHERE and it was really, really weird. They say it’s a “Bob Dylan” biography but how could Bob Dylan have sooooo many different names and be portrayed by black and white people? It was super strange and I hardly understood the whole 2 hours and 15 minutes. Mighty strange it was.

I can’t really explain the storyline here except that their pushing the fact that it’s a Bob Dylan biography even though they all have different names and time eras. But just to be fair to the people who WANNA know the storyline (I doubt that there’s a lot), I’ll just break down each “Bob Dylan-s” and what they did in their part of the movie:

Christian Bales plays a guy named Jack Rollins who is an activist / folk singer who was fairly popular but did a lot of wrong decisions back in his time. Cate Blanchett plays a guy (yes a man!) named Jude Quinn, not only high on drugs all the time but flaunts his Prima Donna behavior even though he’s just kind of a “small” time singer.

Richard Gere plays a Western type of character, “hiding out”, I didn’t really get and understand him and his parts too much. Marcus Carl Franklin played a young African-American kid on his way to Hollywood to be a singer. Ben Whishaw was a “Bob Dylan” look-a-like-person being interviewed and Heath Ledger played a big time movie star named Robbie Clark who’s personal life with his wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is hanging by the thread.

It was really weird with all the jumping about the story and timelines. It was just a bunch of “monologues” put together, and that’s practically it, pretty pointless really. It is one of the biggest disappointments of the year but I’m still looking for the meaning of how all this relates to Bob Dylan, after the long advertisements that these 6 actors play Bob Dylan in this movie. I mean, is the film like Dylan’s life through his own aspect (crazy aspects really)? I have no idea. The film was absolutely messy and really flawed and was really dragging.

However, I can’t say I really regret the film because there were two things that I really enjoyed. One was the fabulous direction of Todd Haynes and the second is the utterly stunning performances given to us by the wonderful Cate Blanchett and 5 other principal leads.

Todd Haynes is a directorial genus. The film was gorgeous in terms of that and every shot looked really great. For a man with such like directed films, he’s done really well for himself this year. His shots were poetic and understood the rather “weird” storyline very well.

The performances of the actors were really fantastic. If only the movie wasn’t weird and their parts were set in chronological order, then the film (along with Haynes direction) would be really good and almost perfect. Too bad it isn’t though. The best from the MEN performances would have to be Heath Ledger. Though it’s no “Brokeback Mountain” (2005), Heath manages to entertain once more, even with a very limited screen time and gives us a fine supporting performance. But his performance cannot compare to the Great Cate.

Following up this year’s “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”, Cate Blanchett gives us yet ANOTHER Best Supporting Actress worthy performance. She was really wonderful, even as a man. Cate Blanchett is really flamboyant and she could do, play ANYTHING. In the 2 hours of boredom I had watching this movie, the only time I became truly enthusiastic and interested is when Cate went on screen. I have a confessions (it’s kinda funny) but I skipped so many Richard Gere parts and just fast-forwarded back to Cate. She saved “I’m Not There”.

Pretty much this is my general feelings towards the film. It’s not a bad movie at all but I won’t recommend it unless you’re really, really into movies and Bob Dylan. “I’m Not There” was not a hit with me, and I can’t understand how this was a hit with the critics. It was boring, flawed and messy. Well, I guess it’ll just have to go on my list of things I don’t understand related to this motion picture.