- “A Complete Unknown,” directed by James Mangold, follows the early years of Bob Dylan’s career.
- Timothée Chalamet gives a great performance as Bob Dylan, down to his musical performances.
- The film, however, doesn’t fully context, and fails to properly establish its stakes.
The last time someone made a Bob Dylan movie, it took six actors to capture his essence. That film was Todd Haynes’ 2007 “I’m Not There,” a conceptual take on Dylan that split the artist into six facets of his public persona, each played by actors like Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, and Cate Blanchett.
In “A Complete Unknown,” James Mangold enlists only one: Timothée Chalamet, tasked with treading the path of Dylan’s early career and the weight of his canonical presence in American music. The film is mostly a biopic that traces Dylan’s transition to electric music, but it also functions as an ensemble drama, roping in other contemporary figures like Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) and Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) to establish the specific moment in folk music.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t fully deliver on either task. The film casts Dylan as a man determined to shake his new American prophet status by innovating out of spite. As he struggles to shake the influences that tug him in different directions — fandom, contemporaries, girlfriends — it’s hard to grasp exactly who we’re supposed to believe this iteration of Dylan is by the end of this film.
“A Complete Unknown” is at its best when it lets the music, rendered vibrantly through live performances, stand on its own. However, in trying to capture too much, the film glosses over character and history alike and loses the connective tissue that would truly make it sing.
‘A Complete Unknown’ throws a lot of historical context at you, all at once
The film takes place on the heels of the McCarthy era, which called musicians like Pete Seeger into question for potential communist ties. It also occurs during the American Civil Rights Movement and the Cold War. All this political context was crucial to Dylan’s formation as an artist, and influenced songs on his 1963 album “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” like “Blowin’ in the wind” and “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall.”
However, past a fleeting “This Machine Kills Fascists” sticker, “A Complete Unknown” mostly relegates that political milieu to the background. Rather, it uses the political upheaval of the 1960s as a backdrop for Dylan’s romantic relationships with his girlfriend Sylvie (a representation of the real-life Suze Rotolo) and fellow musician Baez.
It’s the folk scene where things get a bit more complicated. “A Complete Unknown” hinges on Dylan’s transition from acoustic folk music to electric instrumentation and folk rock, culminating with a controversial performance at the July 1965 Newport Folk Festival that earned him boos from the audience.
As a viewer, you’re made to understand that Dylan’s percolating interest in electric music and his public commitment to it is a huge deal. The issue is, the film struggles to establish exactly why. Is it due to the old guard of folk being stubborn in their ways? An audience who fears that embracing electric means eschewing protest music? Is it a side effect of the naturally slow-moving pace of culture?
It’s difficult to grasp the impact of Dylan’s shift, but even more difficult to fully understand his motivation in doing so. After his first record brings newfound celebrity and ponderous expectations from fans, execs, and fellow musicians alike, “A Complete Unknown” frames Dylan’s changing sound as a desire to buck expectations. In one moment, Dylan says that people should “just let me be” — “whatever it is they don’t want me to be.”
That thread can only carry so much water, and ultimately isn’t a compelling enough character reason to explain Dylan’s determination to piss off an entire musical establishment. Compounded with the lack of clear stakes, the film meanders its way to its own climax as a series of vignettes that lack propulsion.
The music, and Chalamet, are pretty great, though
“A Complete Unknown” succeeds best in its music.
Both Chalamet and Barbaro, who plays Baez, underwent musical training to play their respective icons, and it pays off. Mangold keenly reproduces a sense of being in the room for the production of Dylan’s early hits, whether that room is a recording studio, a club, or a hospital room.
There’s a sense of gravity every time Chalamet opens his mouth, recreating Dylan’s musical style in a way that’s congruous with his own take on the character. Barbaro delivers Baez’s ethereal vibrato well, and she and Chalamet make for a compelling duet. While Dylan’s shift to electric is narratively muddy, sonically, it’s not. As his musical style shifts, “A Complete Unknown” takes you on the same journey, withholding kick drums and electric guitars in the film until Dylan considers using them himself.
As for Chalamet himself, it’s no small feat to tackle one of the biggest personalities in American music — especially when it’s Bob Dylan, an inscrutable character on the best of days.
Chalamet’s take feels equally difficult to read throughout the film, but it’s the brief flashes of vulnerability, like when he first plays for his musical hero Woody Guthrie, or his enmity for an establishment that’s slowly constricting him, where he shines best. It’s a solid and distinguishing notch in the young actor’s already prolific career.
Ultimately, “A Complete Unknown” is an imperfect beast, struggling to distill the mythos of Dylan into something wholly tangible. In that respect, Haynes’ high-concept, multifaceted approach to split Dylan into thematic parts makes sense. Narrative flaws aside, however, there is something about Mangold’s take on the artist that draws you in — even if it’s mostly Dylan’s music itself, refracted through Chalamet’s voice.
“A Complete Unknown” is in theaters on Christmas Day.
