A Complete Unknown – Review

Cert -15, Run-time – 2 hours 20 minutes, Director – James Mangold

As the 60s begin, Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) arrives in New York City and takes the folk scene by storm, before shaking it up with his turn to electric.

A Complete Unknown wants to show just how much of a genius Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) is believed to be. How his songs had a strong impact on the world and those who heard them from the first chord he played. Yet, while scenes of performance are frequent highlights in the near two-and-a-half hour run-time when simply showing a performance it’s generally passes by and seems to take up a couple of minutes. Where these moments work best is when showing a connection to the music at hand, and the effect that it has. More than once the camera focuses on Elle Fanning’s face (playing Sylvie, a fictionalised version of Dylan’s girlfriend Suze Rotolo), close-ups show a range of emotions filling up and beginning to leak from her eyes as on multiple occasions the songs performed on stage bring to further light Dylan’s affair with Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro).

Yet, in others we simply see people working together to create music. A stripped-back, back-to-basics feeling that puts the focus on the sound and the instruments rather than the personalities, while still showing those personal feelings and that love of music. It’s a key point of co-writer (alongside Jay Cocks) and director James Mangold’s biopic as we see a young Bob Dylan arrive in New York City at the dawn of the 60s to meet his hospitalised hero Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), subsequently he stays and throughout the decade shakes up the folk scene in multiple ways.

As his fame, and the constant acclaim he receives, rises so does the character of Dylan. How much of what we see is a persona is only lightly questioned, something left largely aside from the rest of the film’s dealings that feels as if there was more left on the cutting room floor. We get hints that Dylan changed his name from Bobby Zimmerman and the hint of an act when the sunglasses go on and the more his style and look changes, but nothing more upfront. Baez observes to him early on “you’re kind of an asshole, Bob”, although sometimes his behaviour makes “kind of” seem somewhat of an understatement the more the singer-songwriter, whose behaviour may feel like a persona due to the occasionally imitation style of Chalamet’s performance, feels constrained by the folk scene.

“A good song can get the job done without the frills; no drums, no electric instruments” claims Edward Norton’s Pete Seeger (a largely warm and kindly figure who could almost fill in for Mr Rogers) shortly after meeting a freshly-arrived Dylan. A folk purist, he too is shaken up when the young man he helped launch onto the scene turns to those electric instruments. At times treading near the conventional lines of new music receiving negative reaction from the old guard – as a whole Mangold avoids Walk Hard territory, after making Walk The Line, the film which inspired the still-accurate spoof – there’s no denying the effect that the music has. Perhaps it helps that I lean more towards Dylan’s electric tracks than his folk work as a whole, but as a whole there’s a likable use of a good deal of his catalogue, with a sprinkling of other folk tracks, throughout; adding an energetic kick to some of the proceedings, and moving the eventually well-paced run-time along quite consistently.

There is an occasional unevenness to A Complete Unknown, and it shows Dylan to be that way too, particularly in regards to his relationships and way he presents himself to others. But, in a similar way, the music is what helps to lift and drive things. Adding to character interactions and bringing a stronger effect to them. While not a musical this biopic understands the relationship that people can have with music and what it can say, do and bring out. Communicating just that in its best moments where the music can sometimes speak better than anything else, and can also create forgiveness when the central figure starts to come across as kind of an asshole.

While there might be some bumps along the way in regards to Dylan’s personality and a lack of insight into degrees of persona, A Complete Unknown leans into the music with the pivotal point of the connection and effect it can have. With that a better, more enjoyable, film forms with a good kick from its soundtrack.