This is the case with Todd Haynes' I'm Not There. I was already familiar with Haynes with Far from Heaven, so it's natural that I was thrown through a loop with I'm Not There. The narratives for both of them are on different spectrums, Far from Heaven being easy flowing and I'm Not There sporadic.
The cast for I'm Not There is impressive. Among the actors portraying Bob Dylan's personas include Heath Ledger, Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Ben Whishaw and Richard Gere. Of them, I liked Ledger and Blanchett the most. They capture the right portrayal of aloofness towards society. It doesn't mean they're self-absorbed; they just don't care.
I'm Not There is quite good, but it feels disoriented. It jumps from different time periods frequently, so it feels hard to follow sometimes. That said, I thought it was very well-acted. But all in all, it's mostly style over substance.
My Rating: ****
I guess the film is disoriented because that is Haynes's perception of the mystery that is Bob Dylan. I loved Blanchett as Jude Quinn, but I thought Ben Whishaw as Arthur Rimbaud was really good too.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of my all-time favorite films because it got where most bio-pics tend to fail which was to be unconventional. A conventional bio-pic on Dylan wouldn't work because Dylan was never conventional and I think Haynes got it right.
ReplyDelete"Mostly style over substance," completely encapsulates my thoughts on this film. The Richard Gere portion was, to me, completely unnecessary and added nothing to the film. If the young black kid wasn't such a good actor, I'd say that his parts were unneeded as well.
ReplyDeleteBut Bale, Blanchett, Gainsbourg, Moore, Williams... all brilliant.
And Heath. (long sigh). Heath.