A Complete Unknown
A Complete Unknown
Starring Timothee Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro
Directed by James Mangold
In 1961, a then-unknown Bob Dylan (Timothee Chalamet) visits the hospital to meet his idol, Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) before he dies, and also meets Woody's best friend and fellow folk singer Pete Seeger (Edward Norton). Woody asks Bob to play for him, and both men are blown away by his talent. Bob is taken under Pete's wing as he helps him find a record deal and record his own album. Meanwhile, he meets and falls in love with Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning) but also has an affair with fellow folk singer Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro). He's frustrated at first because the company wants him to record cover songs and not his own, and as the years progress he achieves success and finds the courage to perform his own songs his own way, alienating the company, Pete, Joan, and Sylvie in the process. While attending Seeger's Folk Festival, he worries the committee by threatening to play electric (something looked down upon in folk music), and sets out to prove that he's his own musician, and can't be contained by anyone else's expectations.
"A Complete Unknown" sets itself apart from other musical biopics because Bob Dylan isn't your typical musician. He never got involved in drugs and alcohol like other musicians did, and he lived (and still lives) a rather carefree life. He's a chill guy who enjoys making music and doing it his way, and has the testicular fortitude to not let anyone tell him who he is. It's a nice mix of carefree and freedom, as he embarks on his own journey his own way, and while he's not a saint, he doesn't fall to the pitfalls of other musicians, and therefore the movie doesn't fall into those pitfalls as well, which is extremely refreshing.
Timothee Chalamet continues to prove that he's one of this generation's best actors as he fully envelops himself into the role, providing not one but two standout performances in 2024 (the first being "Dune: Part Two"). He fully embodies Dylan in appearance, attitude, and voice, as the songs sung in the film are sung by Chalamet himself. He not only plays Dylan's physicality perfectly, but continues the heir of mystery that the singer possesses even today. We don't know why he really does what he does - why did he begin an affair with Baez, why did he buck the folk system by playing electric, why did he push back against his own fans? Unlike other biopics where we're given all the answers in a spoon-fed fashion, here we don't fully know the answer, apart from because it's what wasn't expected of him, and he's someone who likes to expect the unexpected. To me, this is Chalamet's best role since his breakout performance in "Call Me By Your Name."
Likewise, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro and an unrecognizable Boyd Holbrook excel in their supporting roles. Norton's Pete serves as a mentor figure to Bob, but once Bob starts bucking the system, he tries to ground him back to earth, and Norton's performance is very understated. Elle Fanning and Monica Barbaro vie for Dylan's love and affection, as one (Fanning's Sylvie, a renamed version of Suze Rotolo) supports him at first but questions his past that he never talks about and who succumbs to the jealousy of seeing his success and other relationships - and the other (Barbaro's Joan Baez) is clearly frustrated with her affection for him but also her anger toward his antagonistic ways (one of the film's more humorous scenes is when Baez is singing on stage and sees Dylan offstage and gives him the finger). Barbaro truly shines as she is forced to balance her anger and admiration, creating a more three dimensional character than your generic love interest in musical biopics. Holbrook's Johnny Cash serves as Baez's opposite, an iconic singer in his own right who noticed Dylan's magic and encourages him to buck the system as he did, and Holbrook clearly relishes his role.
The film doesn't do the generic cradle-to-the-grave storytelling with the artist's greatest hits in the background, but rather James Mangold (a prolific director in his own right, delivering iconic films like "Logan" and another excellent musical bipic "Walk the Line") infuses Dylan's songs into the storytelling, producing full-length songs to tell the story, such as after Dylan achieved stardom and the Cuban Missile Crisis enveloped New York City, leaving the town in panic, where Dylan performs "Masters of War" in a small nightclub. Dylan exists to buck the system, and watching him accomplish that is fascinating, and darkly comedic, as he doesn't give a care about what others think of him. Oddly, while this would often serve as a disservice to the audience, in the end we're left rooting for him even though sometimes he comes off - as Baez puts it - kind of an asshole.
Elevating itself from the bland, generic, Wikipedia-esque musical biopics that've littered the cinematic landscape, "A Complete Unknown" is a complete original, telling Bob Dylan's story through the eyes of an awards-worthy performance by Timothee Chalamet.
The Score: A+
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