Film review: ‘A Complete Unknown’. By Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’
Perhaps only Star Wars fans rival Bob Dylan fans in their adoration for their subject. Consequently, a film such as the Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown was always going to be met with rabid expectation and scrutiny. One of the biggest questions was ‘what sort of music biopic would it be?’. So many, including the Ray Charles and Whitney Houston films and even Bohemian Rhapsody, while successful in many ways, adopted a formulaic approach of the young artist enduring a tough upbringing, gaining recognition for their nascent talent, ascending to superstardom then falling prey to various temptations before undergoing some kind of cleansing redemptive experience. On the other hand, films like the Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro have been a little too esoteric and disjointed making it hard to gain a sense of the subject’s life story. It’s tough to pull off a really compelling music biopic. A Complete Unknown, directed and co-written by James Mangold, admittedly falls into the formulaic camp but the richness of the source material and the quality of the production and performances make it one of the better films of the music bio genre.
The film focuses on the period from 1961 to 1965 when Bob (Timothee Chalamet) moves from Minnesota to New York, initially to meet his ailing hero Woodie Guthrie. While serenading the hospitalised Woody with a song about him, Bob befriends another folk legend, Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) who brings Bob into the coffeehouse folk scene where he quickly gains recognition. Through his prolific songwriting and recording, Bob achieves mainstream superstardom and his songs, which combine rustic authenticity, surreal poetry and acerbic social commentary, reshape the landscape of popular music. Desperate not to be artistically pigeonholed, however, he shocks the folkie turtleneck brigade by going electric with his classic 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited and his notorious electrified rock performance at the Newport Folk Festival that year.
All of this is music lore and well known to Dylan fans and probably many casual listeners so the subject matter may prove a little unadventurous for some viewers. Also, in this film, events from Dylan’s life have been excised and timelines compressed, which will no doubt irk some fans. Mangold, however, doesn’t seem especially concerned about giving us a rigorous and precise retelling of Dylan’s life. He’s more interested in exploring Dylan’s character, how it affected those close to him and in particular, how Dylan as an introverted and aloof personality, dealt with the demands of fame and its threat to his identity. In so doing, Mangold has, for the most part, crafted a compelling profile of someone who manages to be both mega-star and enigma.
Much of the credit, of course, goes to Timothee Chalamet who delivers possibly his best performance to date. He captures young Bob’s mix of naïveté, mercurial talent, ambition and sly wit. Chalamet impressively conveys the dilemma of a very singular contrarian being pushed to be someone people think he is. Bob actually becomes more mysterious and distant as the film progresses which would be weird in most biopics but appropriate for Dylan. Also, let’s not forget the film’s title.
A strong supporting cast create flesh and blood people as opposed to one dimensional cyphers as can often happen in these sorts of films. Elle Fanning brings genuine heart to the role of Sylvie (who is apparently based on Dylan’s girlfriend of the time, Suzie Rotolo) and Monica Barbaro impresses (with both her acting and singing) as Joan Baez. Some of the film’s most magical moments are Dylan and Baez dueting on stage. Impressively, both Chalamet and Barbaro did their own singing. Edward Norton completely inhabits the character of Pete Seeger giving him an avuncular charm not unlike Fred Rogers. There are also briefer but still memorable turns from Dan Fogler as Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman and Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash who’s depicted here at his wild man peak and as one of Dylan’s most important muses.
While Dylan fans might be slightly miffed at some aspects of this film, they could have few complaints about its depiction of his music. Chalamet does a fine job performing many of Dylan’s best-known songs from the period including ‘Blowing in the Wind’, ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’, ‘Masters of War’ and of course ‘Like a Rolling Stone’. Thankfully, he does many of these tracks in full, not just snippets.
Dylan had a kind of symbiotic relationship with the tumultuous events of the 1960’s, he addressed the decade’s rapidly changing values in his music while helping to shape them. Appropriate to a film about such a turbulent time, Mangold gives A Complete Unknown a vibrant energy with dynamic (but not jarring) editing and a sense of the increasingly clamorous and at times intimidating public reaction to Bob.
Mangold and cinematographer Phedon Papamichael (Walk the Line) have also given the film an appealing look with autumnal tones and textures that recall the cover of the classic ‘The Freewheeling Bob Dylan’ album.
No doubt, for some, a more ragged and oblique approach to Dylan’s life would have been more interesting than the fairly prosaic treatment here but within the confines of a linear music biopic Mangold has crafted an engaging drama and an impressive showcase of phenomenal artist’s work.
Nick’s rating: ***1/2
Genre: Drama/ Biopic.
Classification: M.
Director(s): James Mangold.
Release date: 23rd Jan 2025.
Running time: 141 mins.
Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm on 88.3 Southern FM.