Who is Bob Dylan? The living legacy of the folk musician seems to evoke questions upon questions. As someone who grew up during a time when every move Britney Spears made seemed to be recorded on the front page of tabloids in the checkout line at grocery stores, I found an air of intrigue about A Complete Unknown as a big music fan looking on the outside in on the musician’s lore. But there’s something incredibly refreshing about this being a biopic that isn’t about big answers about Dylan or rousing messages about the time period.
Writer/director James Mangold, who famously made the Johnny Cash movie Walk The Line back in 2005, does one better. He respects the reclusive legacy of Bob Dylan while also delivering on one heck of a show that will perhaps inspire a newfound interest in the folk genre and how Dylan came in “like a rolling stone” to shake the whole scene up by going electric. By the end of A Complete Unknown, Dylan is both as enigmatic as ever and more tangible than he’s ever been, and there’s a unique charm about the artist’s trademark being absolutely central to his biopic.
You don’t have to be a Bob Dylan fan to appreciate the journey in A Complete Unknown.
A Complete Unknown begins with Timothée Chalamet’s Dylan landing in New York at the age of 19 with the clothes on his back and a guitar to visit his musical idol, Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital while the folk idol was dealing with Huntington’s disease. The movie doesn’t spoon feed you with any scenes of Dylan prior to that; you’re simply locked into the singer’s story from that point on without Mangold feeling the need to cover all of Dylan’s 83 years on this planet so far. You’re dropped into an era, and it’s an enthralling watch from start to finish.
Then Dylan plays a song to Guthrie alongside fellow folk legend Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) in Guthrie’s hospital room. There’s an instant awareness of the raw magic to Chalamet’s Dylan sitting down to tell a story with his guitar and (somehow pitch-perfectly-imperfect live) singing voice. It’s a captivating way to introduce anyone to Bob Dylan, and from then on, the script doesn’t move the focus. The movie is less interested in hitting every bullet point in the subject’s life and is instead fascinated with the singer-songwriter’s ambition and showcasing how it might have looked and sounded like to see Dylan performing in front of you in his early days of fame. Mangold’s direction hangs on its performances in just the right ways, somehow without the movie feeling pretentious or too grand for its audience to swallow up – much like Dylan seemed to be to his fans.
Timothée Chalamet rocks at wielding a performance that honors the mystery and undeniable talent of Bob Dylan.
The casting of Chalamet as Bob Dylan feels like a match made in Hollywood heaven, almost to the point that the movie couldn’t have been pulled off without him. While there’s an awareness that this is the movie star behind the Dune films or last year’s Wonka, the actor’s character work quickly immerses one into the story being told instead. Dylan’s recognizable Minnesota accent isn’t always legible, but that’s almost part of why the performance works. Chalamet embodies a character who is a mix of eccentric, distant, awkward, egocentric and genius that allows one to better grasp the idea of Bob Dylan beyond black and white photos and whiny singing. And while too many biopics love to feel like a commercial for its subject, A Complete Unknown doesn’t hold Bob Dylan too dear.
A Complete Unknown is also elevated thanks to its supporting cast. Elle Fanning plays a composite character Sylvie Russo (who is loosely based on one of Dylan’s girlfriends, Suze Rotolo), who beautifully emulates the rollercoaster ride of emotions a wanderer like Dylan can wreak. Monica Barbaro is simply incredible as Joan Baez, a fellow prominent folk musician who crosses paths with Dylan on many occasions. Her and Fanning’s performances help make Dylan an ever more interesting figure when matched up with his noncommittal, disruptive personality.
Boyd Holbrook channels something completely unrecognizable as a friend of Dylan, Johnny Cash, in a few key scenes. Edward Norton also shines as he plays against type, as the soft-natured Seeger, who is there alongside him to Dylan’s rise and rebellion to folk. As sort of a father figure to the icon, Norton adds more brush strokes of dimension to the film.
James Mangold delivers a music biopic that is more than above average, but not without a couple minor notes.
Oddly enough, as someone who’s seen tons of biopics about musicians who I know many more songs about, A Complete Unknown floors with how much appreciation and enjoyment one can get from seeing Dylan and Joan Baez perform in the film. Through things like intimate closeups and living room serenades, it’s as though one has bought a ticket to a few concerts in a time machine. I witnessed why folk music is worth discovering and got a visual history lesson about an important moment in music history.
The only sour note of the Bob Dylan story is that the artist’s life is clearly so much bigger than A Complete Unknown can fit into its intimate epic, and sometimes those cracks are unfortunately obvious. The movie is very much honed in on tracking Dylan’s story from being folk’s rising star to one of the most famous musicians of his time. While it made a solid choice in not biting off more than it could chew, it feels like there’s a couple of broken strings regarding Dylan’s antiwar and civil rights stances.
As I’ve come to learn, while Bob Dylan is a product of his surge of popularity in the ‘60s, he’s also a timeless figure too, and Mangold and his production design team somehow find the visual language of staying true to this. A Complete Unknown does just what a Bob Dylan biopic should do: it brings insight into the artist, has one feeling like they’ve experienced the artist in his early glory days, and in my case, gave me an introduction to the artist that has had me making friends with his records as a first-time fan.