I'm Not There

Director Todd Haynes has been the most prolific exponent in recent decades to fully embrace the musician-led biopic. He first came to prominence with the hilarious Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story in 1987, which mapped out the star's meteoric rise and decline whilst battling anorexia with Barbie dolls standing in for the prolific star and (as depicted in this film) her monstrously controlling family. Velvet Goldmine then attacked the nostalgia of glam rock in 1998 and now this decade we have the Bob Dylan biopic.

This interwoven tapestry-like film jumps from episodic scene to scene with various different actors playing Dylan at corresponding flashpoints of his diverse life. The tag-line of "inspired by the music and lives of Bob Dylan" is worn loosely as we follow the six different Dylans (all with differing names, never Dylan's): Jack Rollins (an impressive Christian Bale as protest Dylan), Woody Guthrie (Marcus Carl Franklin as 12 year old black prodigy Dylan), Jude Quinn (an androgynous Cate Blanchett as 'Don't Look Back'-era Dylan), Robbie Clark (Heath Ledger in his penultimate full performance as Hollywood Dylan), Billy the Kid (an irascible Richard Gere as the arthouse cowboy Dylan) and finally Arthur Rimbaud (an overly mannered Ben Whishaw as a Narrator Dylan).

Whilst this offers merely a threadbare outline, there is enough visual excitement and aural stimulation in Hayne's film to fill out three or four Dylan biopics, and this is perhaps the movie's ultimate undoing. With the exception of the misjudged Gere section, the story only really seems to be developing in a certain episode before we are whisked into the next decade and desperately would want more information.

A brave attempt undoubtedly, but Haynes seems to have bitten off more than he can chew and the final feeling is that you are left (if you will excuse the expression) blowing in the wind.

Extras: Introduction to the Film, Commentary, A Conversation with Todd Haynes, Making the Soundtrack, A Tribute to Heath Ledger.

Released on 14th July 2008 by Paramount Home Entertainment.

Written by Simon Cole.