“INSPIRED BY THE MUSIC AND MANY LIVES OF BOB DYLAN” reads the opening title. Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger and Christian Bale all take a crack at him; Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams and Charlotte Gainsbourg appear as some of his women. But it is Blanchett as Dylan circa 1965 (think D.A. Pennebaker’s DONT LOOK BACK) and as the post-acoustic guitar rocker, who captures our imagination and runs with it at breakneck speed. As the emaciated, cigarette-smoking, nasal-voiced enfant terrible, his hair backlit to suggest a depraved angel, he torments journalists, fans and girlfriends alike. Appearances by imaginary versions of Allen Ginsberg, Edie Sedgwick, Suze Rotolo, Bobby Neuwirth, Bobby Seale, Albert Grossman and Joan Baez round out Haynes’s fever dream of what it means to be Bob Dylan.
Watch the trailer here:
