★★★★☆
A Complete Unknown, the highly advertised and anticipated Bob Dylan biopic, released exclusively in theaters on Christmas day. The film comes 14 years after the first Dylan biopic, I’m Not There, which was critically acclaimed and cherished by Dylan fans. Looking to exceed an already high bar, big-budget Searchlight Pictures recruited superstar Timothée Chalamet in an attempt to root the film as an iconic piece of Dylan media.
The merit of any biopic must be broadly determined by two factors: its value as a film and its ability to accurately portray a person and their career. A great biopic manages to find a balance between these elements, upholding entertainment value while maintaining a complete and honest story. For the timespan that A Complete Unknown covers, it walks this line deftly.
The film follows Dylan from his arrival in Greenwich Village in 1961 up until his decision to go electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Dylan arrives in the Village as a shy, round-faced folk singer, bouncing around subterranean coffee houses and largely performing covers of iconic folk songs.
Dylan’s relationship with Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) and Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) is a focal point of the film. Dylan’s visit to Guthrie while he was ill in the hospital is a true story—he was Dylan’s idol for some time. The film slips away from the truth for dramatic effect as it turns this singular visit into a string of interactions, which culminates when Dylan says goodbye to Guthrie—and metaphorically the folk scene—after going electric.
Seeger is the one who introduces Dylan to the folk scene, bringing him on stage and showing appreciation for his original songs. Constantly upbeat and idealistic, he and Dylan eventually grow apart.
Throughout the movie, there is a theme of relationships growing and then deteriorating. Dylan’s relationship with Suze Rotolo (Elle Fanning), named Sylvie Russo in the film, blossoms as she opens his political consciousness and encourages him to write folk songs about current world issues. The early part of Dylan’s career was also a tumultuous time in American history, with the Cuban Missile Crisis and the assassination of John F. Kennedy serving as points of reference in the film.
Dylan’s relationship with Rotolo begins to deteriorate as his relationship with Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) grows. Both women fall hopelessly for Dylan, yet he seems incapable of returning this affection due to his free-wheeling nature.
Both Barbaro and Fanning deliver terrific performances. Fanning says more with her facial expressions than her words, emphatically conveying Rotolo’s struggle to accept Dylan’s elusive personality.
Her role as a shunned sweetheart is essential. Without it, Dylan is romantically portrayed as a likable contrarian, when, in fact, he was just a contrarian.
The score is also extremely well worked in the film. As Dylan begins to reach the peak of his fame and starts to seriously drift from Suze, he sings “The Times They Are A-Changin’” as she watches on, teary-eyed, realizing things have changed.
After going electric at Newport, Dylan begins to leave when his friends advise him to end the show with something acoustic to calm the irate, rowdy audience. He returns on stage and sings “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” letting the folk scene know it is all truly over—there’s no going back.
Interestingly, the film conspicuously opted to avoid Dylan’s infamous media interactions that took place during his early career in which he toyed relentlessly with reporters. The lack of these exchanges alters the portrayal of Dylan’s character, helping depict him as involuntarily problematic rather than playfully resistant to convention.
One of the biggest stars in Hollywood, Chalamet continued to show his talent and range as an actor. In the already polluted genre of musical biopics, playing the ever-ambiguous Bob Dylan is not an easy role. Even acclaimed actor Christian Bale made the mistake of mimicking the nasally stereotype of Dylan’s voice in I’m Not There. Chalamet was able to avoid these trite clichés for the most part and even managed to sing Dylan’s music respectably.
Chalamet also expresses Dylan’s often awkward and uncomfortable presence well. Dylan’s inner turmoil in regard to his changing musical and social inclinations emerges as he feels condemned to drift from what his fans desire.
Dylan becomes truly interesting after he completely abandons tradition, yet the film only takes you up to that point. “A complete unknown” is a lyric from “Like A Rolling Stone,” a song that represents Dylan ripping up the playbook, so to speak, and becoming a truly unique figure. Counterintuitively, A Complete Unknown only covers the timespan leading up to that point.
The biopic only underwhelmed in the sense that it was not a comprehensive representation of Dylan. Arguably, Dylan’s most compelling and profound work came after 1965. The film went safe, though, covering only the well-documented and most easily understandable part of his ongoing career.
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