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Amos Lassen wrote on 03/30/2011:

“I’m Not There” is quite a film, complex and strange just like its subject, Bob Dylan. Todd Haynes has created a composite Dylan using six different actors from age 11 to 50 and of both sexes and several races. It’s a hard film to write about and even harder to describe, Each of the “Dylans” represent a period of Dylan’s life. Ben Whitelaw (Arthur), for example, is the Dylan who was a reincarnation of Rimbaud and serves as the narrator of the film. Woody is placed by Marcus Carl Franklin and he is a rail hopper who is the young Dylan, a guy who makes up stories as he needs them. Christian Bale is Jake, the Dylan who became a Greenwich Village legend. He is political who will not be pegged into one little hole. Robbie is Heath Ledger, a young actor in New York City who meets a girl in a Village coffee house, falls in love and shares a ten year marriage with her. Jude, played by Cate Blanchett (in an Oscar winning performance) is the Dylan who toured and conquered Europe when he went electric.
Jude and Arthur show how Dylan challenged his fans and the music industry and then Jude becomes worn out and experiences a near crisis. He is reborn as Pastor John (Christian Bale, once more) and is “born again” and sings gospel songs. The final Dylan is Richard Gere as Billy who retreats from the world but later reemerges.
The different Dylans move in and out of the film and Haynes attempts to give us a picture of the complex Bob Dylan. He avoids cliché and in this sophisticated film we get a look at the man in quite a fractured way. An interesting fact about the film is that Dylan is never mentioned by name.
I was amazed by the film and found it charming and engaging. It captures the essence of Dylan the man who is behind the music that helped to change the way we think.