I was pretty nervous for A Complete Unknown. In worst case scenario, we’re getting a Bohemian Rhapsody situation, where the movie is a glorified sing along of Queen’s greatest hits and an SNL like imitation of the lead character. There are times where the Bob Dylan biopic was headed into that hellhole, but James Mangold’s sturdy hand turns the wheel back on the good path, making this one of the good versions of this ultra famous movie biopics we’re getting at least once a year.
The story is legend at this point. Robert Allan Zimmerman (Timothee Chalamet) travels from Minnesota to New York City in 1961. At that point, he ceases to be Rob Zimmerman and becomes Bob Dylan. He visits the great Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) in his hospital room, where he bumps into Pete Seeger (Edward Norton), the topical equally great folk artist. Woody sees something in Bob, and gets him introduced at open mics across the city. Bob instantly becomes a star, rising folk ranks with his fellow artist/lover Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), staying with his on/off girlfriend Suze Rotolo (Elle Fanning), and with help from his friend Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook), starts to transition from just folk music into that “electric” stuff by the mid 60s.
The title is more than just a reference to Dylan’s most famous song. It’s the theme for James Mangold’s film. Most music biopics follow a similar trajectory of rise, drug/alcohol fueled downfall, then rerise at the end. Not this one. Chalamet plays Dylan like a grown up version of his petulant Lady Bird character, purposefully opaque and completely convinced of his own brilliance. He’s the hero, and everyone else is there to help him figure out himself, and once he’s done, they’re out. Suze, Joan, Pete, Johnny, they all project something onto Bob Dylan they want: lover, duet performer, folk artist, songwriter, etc. But Bob is more than just his relationship with any one of them, and is most interested in pushing his songs and art into bigger and better places. Each of those people take that douchieness differently; Joan can compartmentalize and use the general electricity between them to still deliver at the Newport Music Festival, but Pete is delusional, convinced Bob’s reason for living is to further his life’s passion, folk music for example. The movie builds to the famous 1965 Newport performance, debuting Like a Rolling Stone to the crowd. Mangold bravely doesn’t go for the standard music biopic response from the crowd, he shows what was probably the real one, much more honest to the Complete Unknown that Bob Dylan will always be to the world that all want’s him to be something unique to them.
The performances all had me scared for a while, but they eventually settle in. It takes 20-30 minutes to get used to Timothee Chalamet’s Dylan accent, but eventually he wins you over, and does a decent job singing the songs too. Monica Barbaro is excellent as Joan Baez, nailing the more rangey music she has to sing while making Joan at least more like to an equal to Bob Dylan instead of someone he’s using. Elle Fanning plays the sweet but too innocent girlfriend perfectly fine, nailing her big emotional scene. Edward Norton the pro that he is comes off wonderfully meekish and booksmart as Pete Seeger. And Boyd Holbrook cooks in his 2-3 scenes doing drunk Johnny Cash, having a ball along the way.
The movie is long, but frankly, listening to 5-10 of the greatest songs ever written is a fine reason to boost A Complete Unknown’s runtime. Hopefully the movie become a nice inroad for younger kids to connect to Bob Dylan’s music, to discover the great Joan Baez, and to become alcoholic geniuses like Johnny Cash. Ok scratch that last one, but for Mangold’s sake I hope the kids ask who Cash is, leading to them double dipping on Mangold music biopics.