"I'm Not There" is about Bob Dylan. In theory, anyway.
In practice it is about a bunch of random people, some of who are doing things that Dylan did in the '60s while his music plays in the background.
Hardcore Dylan fans will enjoy finding the small similarities strewn throughout the film, but anyone else will be sorely disappointed.
The inspiration for the film is the multifaceted musical legend Bob Dylan. However, writer/director Todd Haynes has fractured this well-known persona into six distinct parts, each representing an aspect of Dylan's life, though you will have to be an aficionado to understand most of the references.
The stories barely intersect and are switched at random with nothing more connecting one scene to the next than the director's whim.
"I'm Not There" contains segments that are scenes from a documentary about a folk singer, an interview with a cryptic musician, a story about an American musician touring in London, a young boy who rides the rails, a musician-turned-actor whose marriage is falling apart and a cowboy.
Each section has a unique style with a different actor or actress playing a main character based on Dylan.
While it seems that these distinctions would make the film manageable, regrettably, the opposite is true.
The sheer number of storylines coupled with the fact that some segments involve sudden scenes of music videos, lapses in sound or giraffes wandering through the background turns the film from a creative biography into a train wreck.
The stories rotate constantly, and even near the end of the film it is hard to tell if anything that was happening on screen was real, imaginary or somewhere in between.
To make matters worse, the director expects every viewer to have a near encyclopedic knowledge of Dylan lore, and instead of just rewarding this knowledge he relies on it and offers very little explanation for each separate story. Without this knowledge it is hard to see the connection some of the characters have to Dylan and what is based on fact versus what is artistic liberty.
A variety of actors play the Dylan clones including Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett. All but Blanchett succeed. Despite the fact that she looks quite mannish when wearing sunglasses, the fact that she is in drag hangs like a white elephant over all her scenes. They feel similar to "Saturday Night Live" sketches where women play men, and everyone spends the whole sketch trying not to laugh.
"I'm Not There" is an ambitious project that simply tried to be too many things at once.
While diehard Dylan fans will be able to understand what is going on, audience members not armed with the prerequisite knowledge will find it nothing more than an unending morass of confusion and discontent.
"I'm Not There" is currently playing at the Harkins Camelview theater in Scottsdale.
Reach the reporter at: zachary.richter@asu.edu.
