I'm Not There

I'm not the biggest Bob Dylan fan you'll find but I do have five or six of his albums and enjoy catching up with them every now and then. I definitely have to be in the right mood. So I approached this Freewheelin' look at his life with a mixture of interest and caution.

Seems I was in the right mood as for the most part I really enjoyed it. It's clearly going to find a happier home with Dylan obsessives but I knew enough about the man and his history to get drawn into this offbeat portrait of his varied psyches.

There's hero Dylan, inspiration Dylan, celebrity Dylan, wilderness Dylan, protest Dylan and, best of all, Cate Blanchett as villain Dylan. I think I've got all of those right. If not I'm at least due something for 'villain Dylan' because it sounds cool and rhymes.

Blanchett is bloody brilliant and electrifies the movie (that pun alone should win me some points eh Dylan geeks?). The rest of the cast are great too - really quirky and interesting in the best possible way. There were some scenes that caused my mind to wander elsewhere but it's not really the sort of film that you need to focus all your attention on - in fact the freeform style of it almost encourages you to drift off into something like a dreamy, bohemian haze. I don't know, I'm just pretending to be a cool beatnik.

One thing I do know though is that this film made me realise just how much I want to run alongside a goods train in the USA and jump into one of the cargo wagons. Yeah man.