This movie is roughly three times as long as it needs to be and probably best recommended only for die-hard Bob Dylan fans.

While Cate Blanchett is completely amazing and entirely unrecognizable, the rest of the movie is often confusing and sometimes just a disjointed mess.

Je ne comprends pas.

It’s a bold idea to take the details of Bob Dylan’s life and music and to tell an episodic story with 6 different actors playing different versions of him. That’s what attracted me to the film as I appreciate Dylan’s music, but I’m not a huge fan. What surprised me was how much fun the film was and the skillful way that Todd Haynes was able to blend together the stories and clever allusions to different films and filmmmakers. So while I’m not well-versed in Dylan trivia, the cinematic trivia kept me interested and fascinated as biography, history and music swirled around. There aren’t a lot of biopics that have allusions to Fellini and quote dialogue from Godard.
Of all the Dylans in the film, Cate Blanchett is transcendent as Jude Quinn. When she shows up in the film it’s exciting and electric. Arriving home after the film a biography of Dylan was on the tv and seeing footage of Dylan from the time that Blanchett builds her character around made me think that she did a better job than Dylan himself.
It was a lot of fun and in many ways it’s a better way to explore the ideas and personas of Bob Dylan than a more traditional documentary.

This film was okay for a while, in fact it was very exciting at the start, but it began to drag a bit.

That’s kind of how I feel about Dylan although I should say I know very little about him or his music. I mean I like the early Bob Dylan, and I know little of the later things he’s done.

It was interesting seeing the reaction to the electric Bob Dylan. Unfortunately the soundtrack went silent for about 4 or 5 minutes at this point and at first it was difficult to tell whether this was on the part of the filmmaker or the projection box. We didn’t regain sound until an interview in London; so the projection box I think was to blame. The sound was therefore back for the famous Judas heckle at the Manchester Free Trade Hall concert. I could feel a certain amount of sympathy for Dylan at this point.

The Richard Gere character scenes were a bit mystifying to me.

I couldn’t help feeling that Bob Dylan was a tremendous talent, some would say that he still is, but it was pitiful seeing him (or Jack Rollins or whoever) say that he had accepted Jesus in his heart. I don’t know why I feel that as I don’t wish to disrespect either him or the Christian religion. It just seems weak somehow (so okay I’m being disrespectful of Christianity—not cool I know).

Some very beautiful imagery but more than a little pretentious and boring