Film Review: "A Complete Unknown"

5 Stars

With lifetime record sales approaching over 150 million albums, writer and musician Bob Dylan is one of America’s greatest artistic exports. From the beginning, he wanted the music to be remembered even as he dodged the almost-instant fame and attention it brought. In 2016, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature: an honor he declined to accept. With a reclusiveness often hidden behind dark sunglasses, Dylan is a mysterious artistic enigma.

Director James Mangold and his biopic star Timothée Chalamet (himself a modern version of an enigma) have teamed up to give you the closest version yet of Dylan’s inner life in A Complete Unknown. It’s a much-anticipated collaboration years in the works, and it pays off beautifully in one of my favorite films of the past year.

One of the keys to this moving experience is the framework, as Mangold and his screenwriters choose not to tell the musician’s full life story but instead to focus on one epic chapter. The film begins in New York City, with a kid getting off the bus carrying only a guitar, seeking out his idol Woody Guthrie.

With quiet, gentle steps, Dylan begins to share his music with the world while it rapidly expands his own notion of what music is and who he should become. To call Chalamet’s portrayal a performance would be to diminish what is instead an uncanny and full transformation. He not only embodies the icon, but effortlessly sings and plays his songs on screen as well (something he spent five years training for).

In the film, Dylan’s big break was his friendship with musician Pete Seeger, who did in fact champion him and loved his music (even though much of their relationship in A Complete Unknown has been tweaked into fiction). Ed Norton plays Seeger with such ease and with so much feeling that it’s hard not to be heartbroken watching as Dylan’s fame both helps and hurts the one-time mentor.

Most notably, they clash over Dylan’s decision to defy his friend and play electric guitar at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, a celebrated platform Seeger helped found. What sounds trivial now was epic at the time, as Dylan moved from his Americana roots to a rock ’n’ roll sound more suited to the counterculture of the time. The festival audience is so enraged they scream “Judas!” to the singer and many walk out. A Complete Unknown was based in part on the 2015 book Dylan Goes Electric! by Elijah Wald, who is also a screenwriter on the project.

Mangold’s vision of Dylan is poetic, but never hero worship. The artist’s moodiness, impatience, and ego are laid bare. As is the now-famous manipulation he maintained between his romantic relationships. More allegorical than historical, the director creates those tensions in a love-triangle between Dylan, his first wife, and his later involvement with singer Joan Baez.

Actress Elle Fanning (playing Dylan’s first lover Sylvie Ruzzo, a disguised version of the real-life Suze Rotolo), has the perfect chemistry with Chalamet and the perfect jealousy of Baez, who she admires but can’t become. Playing Baez is actress Monica Barbaro, herself a victim of Dylan’s mysteries and a love that can’t be fully returned. Both performances are moving and memorable and add to a chorus of what makes the film feel special.

A Complete Unknown was a collaboration with Bob Dylan himself, who had script approval over this quasi-magical interpretation of his life, but no final say in the movie. “Dylanologists” are torn over the creative liberties, but the star has said he likes it. So did I.

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