Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that this experimental meditation on the "many lives of Bob Dylan" will go straight over the head of most younger viewers. Older teens who've been exposed to Dylan's music may be curious about the drama, but its metaphoric nature means it probably won't appeal to most of them -- or to non-fan adults, for that matter. Without a fair amount of knowledge of Dylan's music and life, the film will seem confusing and slow. There are a few love scenes and shots of naked breasts and buttocks, not to mention one quick full-frontal flash of a post-shower Heath Ledger. Expect some language (standard R-rated stuff), a bit of '60s pill-popping, and lots of smoking.
Sexual
Content
A couple of artistic lovemaking scenes -- in one, breasts are visible. There's a glimpse of a full-frontal Heath Ledger as he emerges out of the shower. Several kisses and three images of men's buttocks.
Violence
Cartoonish image of young Woody being swallowed by a whale and a fantasy sequence of Jude and his band machine-gunning the crowd at a concert (it's a metaphor for Dylan going electric). Disturbing scene in which a murdered young woman is propped up in her coffin for everyone at a funeral to see. A child pets a dead horse.
Language
More prevalent in some sequences than others. Words include "s--t," "a--hole," "c--ksucker," "tit," "f--k," "bitch," "p---y," "goddamn," etc.
Social
Behavior
Suggests that even in a celebrity-obsessed culture, you never really know who an artist is, as he may be various different versions of himself all at once.
Consumerism
Not applicable
Drugs / Tobacco /
Alcohol
Pill-popping during '60s mod scenes; cigarette smoking throughout. Minor social drinking.