Josh Reviews A Complete Unknown

A Complete Unknown charts the rise of Bob Dylan from 1961-1965.  The film opens with Dylan as a nobody, hitchhiking to New York City to meet his idol, Woody Guthrie, who had recently been hospitalized.  We follow Dylan’s steps to success — and then stardom — up through to his controversial performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where his choice to go electric alienates many of the folk fans and other musicians.  The film was directed by James Mangold, who also co-wrote it along with Jay Cocks; it’s based on the book Dylan Goes Electric! by Elijah Wald.  Mr. Mangold has recently been known for directing big special effects films (including Logan and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny), but this film is more along the lines of his great 2005 Johnny Cash bio-pic, Walk the Line.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film!  It’s anchored by a magnificent performance by Timothée Chalamet (Interstellar, Lady Bird, Dune) as Dylan.  Not only was Mr. Chalamet able to make himself look like Dylan (the posture, the hair, the sunglasses), but I was bowled over by how much he was able to make himself sound like Dylan!  He really captured Dylan’s mumbly cadence.  And more than that, there is a LOT of Dylan’s music in the film — songs that are very famous and that I know very well — and somehow Mr. Chalamet was able to sound exactly like Dylan when singing these songs.  I don’t know how he did it.  It’s an incredible performance.  (And the film knows it!  My one complaint about this film is that it’s a little bit too long.  In thinking about this movie, I think a major reason for that is that the film lingers on many of Mr. Chalamet’s performances when singing as Dylan.  And yet, I don’t know what other choices Mr. Mangold & co. could have made, because each time, I was glad the film didn’t cut away too quickly, because I was enjoying the songs so much!!)

I was also blown away by Edward Norton (Fight Club, 25th Hour, Moonrise Kingdom, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery)’s nuanced, empathetic performance as folk music icon Pete Seeger.  I loved the way the film explored the friendship between Mr. Seeger and Dylan, and I was completely captured by Mr. Norton’s gentle, soft-spoken portrayal.  I can’t believe that this Dylan-focused movie actually had me sort of siding with Pete Seeger over the whole “going electric” situation in ’65!  (I’ve always sided with Dylan; my feeling was: who cares about the people trying to put rules and boundaries around music and what an artist can and can’t do?  But watching this film, which emphasizes how much Mr. Seeger helped Dylan get his start, I felt for Mr. Seeger and understood his sense of betrayal and disappointment when Dylan ignores his plea to respect their folk music in his closing night performance.  That’s a testament to Mr. Norton’s terrific performance.)  (Although this film generally gets high marks for its historical accuracy, as is to be expected, there’s also a lot that’s made up or condensed or conflated.  And so it doesn’t seem, for example, to be true that Dylan really stayed the night with Pete Seeger and his family on Dylan’s first night in New York.  Click here for an in-depth look at what’s real and what’s not in this movie.)

Elle Fanning (Super 8, The Neon Demon) is great as Dylan’s girlfriend Sylvie Russo (a renamed version of Mr. Dylan’s real-life girlfriend Suze Rotolo).  This independent young woman takes a liking to Dylan when he’s young and broke; but as he gains fame she begins to feel on the outside looking in.  This is a familiar character type in these sorts of music bio-pics, but I felt Ms. Fanning did a nice job breathing like into Sylvie and making her a real-feeling and sympathetic character.  I also loved the work of Monica Barbaro (Top Gun: Maverick) as Joan Baez.  The film explores how Ms. Baez and Dylan were drawn to one another, despite their oil-and-water personalities.  Ms. Barbaro was vivacious and charismatic as Ms. Baez, and wow she has a gorgeous singing voice.  I was also extremely taken by Boyd Holbrook (he was the villain in two of Mr. Mangold’s previous films, Logan and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, and he’s also been great recently in B. J. Novak’s film Vengeance and as the Corinthian in The Sandman) as Johnny Cash.  Mr. Holbrook captures Johnny Cash’s brooding cool, and like the other actors in this film he really sounds like Mr. Cash when he sings!

I was happy to see Dan Fogler (Jacob Kowalski in the Fantastic Beasts films) as Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman.  It’s mostly a serious role, but Mr. Fogler brings a playful sense of fun to the character, especially in the third act.  Scoot McNairy (Killing Them Softly, Argo, True Detective season three) is great in a mostly silent role as Woody Guthrie (who at that point in his life was mute due to illness).  Eriko Hatsune brings a lot of life to Pete Seeger’s wife Toshi (who has a critical moment late in the film, cooling down her husband Pete after Dylan’s electric set at the Newport Folk Festival).  Nick Pupo is great in a small role as Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul and Mary).

Sometimes I complain that I’ve watched a whole movie and I don’t really feel like I know or understand the main character.  Here in this movie, I think Mr. Mangold and his team struck a strong balance between exploring Dylan and also keeping him as an elusive, enigmatic figure, just as I think the real Bob Dylan always has been!  I like the the film emphasizes Dylan’s musical brilliance and his social consciousness… and also doesn’t shy away from showing how he could be a selfish asshole.  Is this accurate to the real Bob Dylan?  I can’t say.  But as a movie, I was delighted.  Going in, I assumed that the title, A Complete Unknown, referred to where Dylan was when we met him at the start of this movie.  And it does; but interestingly, I think it also can be taken to refer to Dylan himself, who remains an unknown to us even at the end of the movie.  This feels exactly correct.  What a bold choice for a bio-pic to take!  I found A Complete Unknown to be pleasurably riveting from start to finish, a wonderful salute to the music of Bob Dylan, and to the man himself.

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