A COMPLETE UNKNOWN (2024)
Starring Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Boyd Holbrook, Dan Fogler, Norbert Leo Butz. Scoot McNairy, PJ Byrne, Will Harrison, Eriko Hatsune, Charlie Tahan, Ryan Harris Brown, Eli Brown, Nick Pupo, Big Bill Morganfield, Laura Kariuki, Stephen Carter Carlsen, Eric Berryman, David Alan Basche, Joe Tippett and James Austin Johnson.
Screenplay by James Mangold and Jay Cocks.
Directed by James Mangold.
Distributed by Searchlight Pictures. 141 minutes. Rated R.
I think I owe an apology. A few years ago, when I heard that Timothée Chalamet had been cast to play Bob Dylan in this film, I thought it was a horrible job of miscasting. I worried that Chalamet was too much of a pretty boy, not enough of a presence to capture all of the complicated levels of Dylan, who is a genius and often kind of a dick all at the same time.
What can I say? Chalamet has proven me wrong, and I’m glad to see it. In fact, Chalamet absolutely nailed the performance, which is pretty impressive when you consider what a cipher Dylan has always been. He is spot on in his voice (both speaking and singing, as Chalamet performs all of the songs in the film), his movements, his lack of social skills, his self-involvement, his seeming inability to connect with others. It’s all a bit of an imitation, but it’s a good one. He is a bit too handsome to be Dylan, but it’s not distracting.
In fact, although A Complete Unknown is obviously created of great love for the work of Dylan, I’m pleased to see that the film does not totally whitewash the fact that the guy could be kind of an asshole at this point in his career – the film focuses on the years from when Dylan arrived in New York through to his infamous plugged-in performance at The Newport Folk Festival. (If you need further proof, check out DA Pennebaker’s classic documentary Don’t Look Back, which also looked at this era, which shows the singer to be both a genius and a total jerk.)
A Complete Unknown is not as good as the performance – it falls into certain rock biopic traps of skirting over major accomplishments and romanticizing the story a bit – but it’s mostly pretty enjoyable, as long as you go in knowing you’re not getting the complete true story.
In fact, it is somewhat reminiscent of Walk the Line, writer/director James Mangold’s previous 2005 biopic of Johnny Cash. (Interestingly, Cash is also a significant supporting character in A Complete Unknown, which seems like a bit of a screenwriter’s device, although the two men were contemporaries and really were friends.) However, like Walk the Line, the filmmaker takes some of the truth and stretches it a lot, or even makes a lot of stuff up, to make for a more interesting, cinematic story.
A Complete Unknown is almost like a greatest hits collection of Dylan’s early accomplishments, with little segue or explanation between accomplishments. And yet, Dylan had such a massively fascinating life at that point that fitting it all into two hours and twenty minutes doesn’t quite work. Even though it’s a long movie, it feels incomplete.
However, the music and the recreation of the early-mid 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene is fascinating, even when it’s slightly rushed or whitewashed.
As Dylan gets more wrapped up in his art and his fame, he becomes harder to deal with and surer that he was constantly right. He treats people unfeelingly and often cruelly. His on and off girlfriend Joan Baez (Monaca Barbara) calls him an asshole multiple times during the film, and she wasn’t wrong.
He was particularly bad to the women in his life, as shown here by Baez and his long term relationship with Elle Fanning’s Sylvie Russo. (Sylvie is a fictionalized version of Dylan’s real-life ex Suze Rotolo. Dylan requested her name be changed in the movie, which is surprising because most of the other characters went by their real names.)
Yet, for all its imperfections, A Complete Unknown is still a fascinating film. Like I said earlier, it may not tell the real story of Bob Dylan, but the story it does tell is pretty damned interesting.
Jay S. Jacobs
Copyright ©2024 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: December 21, 2024.
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