Dylan Times Six in Toronto

I feel Ty's pain. My movie day started off lousy, with "Blood Brothers'' too, and ended with the far more disappointing "Married Life.'' Despite a marquee cast (Chris Cooper, Pierce Brosnan, Patricia Clarkson, Rachel McAdams) and Sundance-winning director Ira Sachs, it's a weak-tea black comedy about suburban infidelity, '40s style, that never gets off the ground. You expect plot twists, or violence, or something. But the betrayals remain pallid, the period production design phony.

In between I saw Todd Haynes' masterful and maddening "I'm Not There.'' It's the director's anti-biopic; Haynes presents Bob Dylan as one of pop culture's great poseurs -- and praises him for a life of shape-shifting and defying expectations. Thus we get six Dylan simulations -- among them Christian Bale as the folkie troubadour, Heath Ledger as the self-involved celebrity, and Cate Blanchett as the confused revolutionary who alienates his fan base by going electric.

It's long, intricate, and ambitious, with Haynes as usual mixing genres and styles with gusto. He has a great time recreating (and spoofing) the earnest folk underground (Julianne Moore is fun as a mulleted proto-Baez), and the Blanchett scenes play out like Fellini, or "Stardust Memories,'' at least. But the portions that follow Dylan through his boho cowboy incarnation are leaden, and there's just too much of Ledger and Charlotte Gainsbourg, as the wife he leaves aside.

Ultimately, I left "I'm Not There" wondering how much Todd Haynes really likes Bob Dylan. And I'm not sure that's what I was supposed to feel at all.