A bio-pic is difficult to get right, but a bio-pic of a living musical legend — in this case Bob Dylan — seems too daunting to contemplate.
With "I'm Not There," however, director Todd Haynes pulls it off with the cunning audacity of a master card-player. The result is a fiendishly clever package that dazzles the mind but, in the end, remains curiously remote and elusive; Haynes returns all cards to the deck, the lights come on and it's as if the movie never happened.
This is probably the effect Haynes was aiming for. After the brilliant kaleidoscope of images he conjures onto the screen, Haynes literally cuts the ground out from under our feet. The experience is exhilarating but leaves you feeling gypped somehow. . . . So, was that really Bob Dylan?