Biopics make the least challenging and most predictable prestige movies, and it’s usually twice as tiresome when the subject is a musician: hardscrabble childhood, early promise, adoption of signature sound, rise to fame, infidelity on tour, drug abuse, the fickle public, blah blah blah. But Todd Haynes (Safe, Far From Heaven) never follows an easy path, and I’m Not There (limited release November 21; Las Vegas release TBA), his new film about Bob Dylan, appears to be less a straightforward account of the man’s life than an avant-garde meditation on his image. Christian Bale plays the title role. So does Heath Ledger. So does, um, Richard Gere. And just to really mess with us, so does Cate Blanchett.
Mike D’Angelo writes on film for Esquire, Nerve.com and the Weekly.