Local Spins reviewer John Serba digs into the latest Bob Dylan biopic, a film spotlighting the iconic singer-songwriter’s formative years and starring Timothee Chalamet.
Playing in Theaters Now: ‘A Complete Unknown’ (Searchlight Pictures)
THE MOVIE: “A Complete Unknown”
LOCAL SPINS SCORE: ★★★ (three out of four stars)
MPAA RATING: R for language
CAST: Timothee Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbero
DIRECTOR: James Mangold
RUN TIME: 141 minutes
VIDEO: Scroll down for “Making of ‘A Complete Unknown'”
I’m tempted to write this review with nothing but onomatopoeic non-words mimicking the famously indecipherable mumbles of Bob Dylan.
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After all, this biopic about the iconic singer-songwriter is titled “A Complete Unknown,” a line culled from one of Dylan’s most famous lyrics, but gently decontextualizing it as this movie does reframes it as a self-descriptive phrase underscoring his inscrutable nature. And unlike most musician biopics, this one doesn’t even try to pry open the inner life of its subject. In this movie, Bob Dylan is mmremmermhh heenerermerhermmm. Interpret that as you may.
Not that the film is an “SNL” skit, mind you. It’s ostensibly a dramatization of the early years of Dylan’s career, opening with his arrival in New York City in 1961, and concluding with his controversial plugged-in Stratocaster performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival (the film was originally titled “Going Electric”).
You likely know the lore – how he upset the folk-music establishment by daring to play guitars through amplifiers, and defining himself as the restlessly progressive artist he’s been ever since, who feeds biographical folk-tale fabrications and stubbornly refuses to let anyone else write his story.
Bob Dylan’s 1964 Classic
So how does “A Complete Unknown” justify its existence? Very carefully: It functions as a celebration of Dylan’s most influential songs, to the point where there’s seemingly more singing than dialogue in the film (not that I got out my stopwatch to find out, mind you). That’s a tricky methodology demanding exacting authenticity hinging on the performance of its lead actor, Timothee Chalamet. And so this is the type of movie banking on a PR campaign hyping how Chalamet spent years learning guitar and harmonica so he could perform the songs live as the camera rolled; any evidence of jukebox-musical lip-syncing would almost certainly be deemed a fart in the face of Dylan’s legacy of artistic credibility.
Full disclosure: I bristled at the thought of It Boy Chalamet – the Oscar nominee for “Call Me By Your Name” and star of “Dune” and “Wonka” who sometimes seems as if he’s more eyebrows than man – strumming a guitar beneath a signature mop of curls, mimicking the famously nasal vocal tones that writer Joyce Carol Oates once described as “if sandpaper could sing.”
But Chalamet navigates a few rocky moments of near-caricature to find the bleeding, beating heart of “Song to Woody,” “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “The Times They Are A-Changin’” and many others, whether they’re staged as full-blown live-concert sequences or mumbled and hummed as he works out lyrics at his desk or in the bathtub. I’ll leave it to Dylan scholars to determine whether Chalamet truly does the music justice, but in the moment, and in the context of the film, the actor finds some invigorating ecstatic truth within the words and chords. It’s some pretty irresistible Oscar bait.
As for Dylan’s motives for writing these songs? Clear as mud, and that’s almost certainly by design. Director James Mangold – who co-wrote with Jay Cocks, basing the screenplay on Elijah Wald’s book “Dylan Goes Electric!” – conceptualizes the film almost as a series of iconic Dylan album covers and photos brought to life, with the music drawing out thematic depth. Mangold famously directed Johnny Cash bio “Walk the Line,” which may end up being the last of the great traditionally styled music biopics. “A Complete Unknown” is an evolution of the form without being a full-on subversion, as it indulges a handful of cliches while keenly dodging others.
And so we get some print-the-legend shorthand-biography elements, the historical inaccuracies of which Dylanheads will just have to accept as artistic license (and here’s your reminder that, no matter the subject, all movies made with actors, artificial lighting and all the not-real stuff of the craft are fiction by strict definition). It inevitably frames scenes within the context of nation-shaking events, whether it’s Dylan listening to reports about JFK’s assassination or staging a scene in which he sits on a stage passionately singing “Masters of War” during the most critical moment of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
SERENDIPITOUS MEETINGS AND CREATING THE DYLAN MYSTIQUE
It also assembles Dylan’s relationships with Sylvie Russo (Dakota Fanning, playing his real-life ex-girlfriend Suze Rotolo in pretty much every way but the name) and Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) as a love triangle fringed with jealousy and heartbreak. Cheesy Hollywood hogwash? Sure, maybe, but for better or worse, it’s for the sake of creating a tight, coherent story with reasonably sturdy narrative bookends.
The film opens with Dylan hitching a ride to New York City and making his way to a hospital to visit an ailing Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), his idol. And who happens to be parked alongside Woody’s bed, plucking a banjo? Pete Seeger (Edward Norton). The veteran songsmiths encourage 20-year-old Bobby to play for them, and “Song for Woody” prompts Seeger to invite him into his home, and nurture this fledgling talent as the guy who can bring folk music to the masses.
A Scene from ‘A Complete Unknown’
Next thing you know, Bobby’s assimilated into Seeger’s folk circuit, performing for radio showcases and on cafe stages, landing a record deal, recording standards instead of his own songs and exchanging mutually admiring letters with another of his idols, Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook, stealing a couple of scenes), who encourages Dylan to “track mud on the carpet.”
Dylan meets and moves in with Sylvie, who’s taken by his mystique, but frustrated by his unwillingness to share his thoughts and feelings; she calls him “a mysterious minstrel” and secretly doubts the credibility of his stories about working for a traveling carnival.
He performs with Baez, his thinly veiled insults (she sings “almost too pretty”) becoming harsh criticisms (her songs “are like oil paintings in a dentist’s office”) defining him as a judgmental jerk her loins apparently can’t resist: She sleeps with him, calls him an “asshole,” then quips as he scribbles in his notebook, “Did you come over here just to make me watch you write?”
Scenes between Chalamet and a terrific Barbaro give “A Complete Unknown” a bit of necessary electricity, and they’re a catalyst for our emotional involvement; a sequence in which Dylan and Baez duet on “It Ain’t Me, Babe” while a teary-eyed Suze watches is one of the film’s strongest moments. Otherwise, the film tends to ape Dylan’s coyness by staging a scene in which a character noses through his scrapbook and spots the name “Robert Zimmerman” on a piece of mail, only to have Suze slam the door on any attempts to figure the guy out.
The film frames Dylan as an enigma who invented his persona in these key years – whether it’s calculated or improvised is part of the mystery – embracing the inherent contradiction of a chronically sunglasses-wearing self-styled icon who performs bracingly sincere songs destined to define a generation of American art and politics.
The movie lightly grazes in some thematic pastures, touching on the isolation of fame and the dogmatic nature of the mid-century folk-music movement, keenly reflected in Norton’s layered characterization of Seeger, a man of progressive politics who finds himself trapped in a conservative musical ideology.
But anyone hoping to glean some insight into what Dylan thinks about all of this – the intense attention, the political turmoil, the inherent greed and exploitation of the music business – won’t get it. That may be frustrating for some, but Mangold banks on us feeling something, a lot actually, when Chalamet-as-Dylan plays “The Times They Are a-Changin’” with utmost poignancy. If you feel that one in your heart and bones now and here in 2024, and I sense you will, it’ll underscore the relevance of “A Complete Unknown.”
The man is temporary, but his songs are forever.
Check out Local Spins concert reviews and more about Bob Dylan here.
VIDEO: Making of ‘A Complete Unknown’
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