A Complete Unknown Review

It’s not the first film about the icon that is Bob Dylan – it would be a surprise if it was – but the latest version of his life to reach the big screen is only the second biopic. Sure, there’s been documentaries, including two from no less than Martin Scorsese, but the only other dramatic approach has come from Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There (2007), with six actors including Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett and Heath Ledger all portraying different aspects of his public persona. James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown presents us with a significant period in Dylan’s life, making it as far away from Haynes’ experimental version as you can get, but the fascination with one of the biggest and most enduring talents the music world has ever seen remains completely intact.

Covering just five years in his life, we see the young Bob Dylan (Timothee Chalamet) arrive in New York in 1961, an unknown singer from the Midwest and in town because he’s read his idol Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) is in a city hospital. He wants him to hear a song he’s composed about him: what he doesn’t expect is the extent of Guthrie’s illness, or that folk legend Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) is at his bedside. It’s essentially the start of his career. Seeger acts as his mentor, Dylan composes some of his most legendary songs and the musical action culminates in the events at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, when he made the decision to ditch folk in favour of electric, causing shockwaves not just in the crowd at the time but among music fans all over the world.

While the music leads the way and successive Newport Festivals all act as bookmarks, his relationships are tightly woven into the narrative. There’s his on-off girlfriend, Sylvie (Elle Fanning) who doesn’t belong in his world and can’t hold on to him. And there’s the more public relationship with fellow singer/songwriter Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) who comes to despise his arrogance and aversion to commitment. Other fleeting girlfriends are quicker to realise his time in their lives will be short. Professionally, it’s his relationship with the gentle and fatherly Seeger (beautifully played by Norton) that gives him the launchpad he needs and who, like every other mentor, has to face the painful moment when the talent he’s nurtured so carefully no longer wants or needs him.

While Chalamet’s performance as Dylan has attracted the lion’s share of attention, this is Norton’s best work in a while, a man of principle who knows that his attitudes and style of music are falling out of favour and can’t do anything to stop it. The hurt in his eyes says it all. Chalamet’s creation is complicated, initially attractive but essentially only interested in two things – himself and his music. And the two are inextricably intertwined. His way of looking at the world is totally individual, as is his voice (Chalamet does his own singing), so he’s great for the development of modern music, but not so easy to live with. Most of the time he’s difficult to like, yet remarkably that doesn’t prevent you from being totally immersed in the film.

And that is down to Mangold’s skill as a storyteller and filmmaker. This, after all, is the director who gave us Walk The Line (a very different Johnny Cash crops up here as well), Logan, Le Mans 66 and the remake of 3:10 To Yuma, that rarest of beasts, the re-boot that improved on the original. Whether his story is fact-based or fiction, his style remains the same – a powerful narrative, interesting and credible characters and strong visuals with superbly choreographed crowd sequences. There’s nothing superfluous, nothing flashy, it’s just great filmmaking and with A Complete Unknown he’s knocked it out of the park. The film has the added benefit of appealing to an unusually broad audience, from those who grew up with Dylan’s music to Chalamet’s huge fan base and pretty much everybody in between. Word has it that Bob Dylan himself is happy with the result. And that says a lot.

★★★★★

In UK cinemas from 17 January 2025 / Timothee Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Scoot McNairy, Boyd Holbrook, Dan Fogler / Dir: James Mangold / Searchlight Pictures