A more evasive mentality is adhered to in A Complete Unknown and its subject, musician Bob Dylan, than what director James Mangold afforded Johnny Cash in Walk The Line (2005), here, a deliberately distant biopic that dares to keep Dylan as the enigmatic character he is, rather than create anything false and flashy for the sake of structured storytelling.
Set over 4 years – arguably the most important of his career – the Dylan we meet at the offset of the film’s 1961 setting, as embodied by a striking Timothée Chalamet, is an anonymous folk singer looking to make a name for himself in Greenwich Village, New York. Like Joaquin Phoenix in the aforementioned Walk The Line, Chalamet’s turn here isn’t a mere impression of Dylan, but one that feels behavioural and authentic. With the signature sunglasses, a personality that flits between retreating and defiance, and unrefined vocals, Chalamet disappears here, even if the man beneath the myth is perennially out of reach.
The majority of biopics find conflict for their subject through childhood trauma or addiction. A Complete Unknown showcases a man battling against his own public perception. Perhaps audiences may find this frustrating that they’ll exit Mangold’s film without a better grasp on his character, but that entirely seems like the point; the proof is right there in the titular pudding.
Even the characters that orbit Dylan – his girlfriend, Sylvie (Elle Fanning, sublime in a variation on the real-life Suze Rotolo), Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), who Dylan idolises, and singer-songwriter-activists Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) and Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) – feel as if they’re only being let in on parts of Dylan’s psyche, with Sylvie and Pete, arguably, learning the hardest how difficult it was to be in his life.
As disconnected as the film may appear in relation to Dylan and its viewers, Mangold’s script, written alongside Jay Cocks (The Age of Innocence, Strange Days, Gangs of New York), does deliver some true moments of equal magic and electricity. You’d be hard pressed to not be emotionally swept in the sequences surrounding Dylan’s visit to a hospital-bound Guthrie, whilst the back-end moments of the film at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where he notoriously caused something of a riot by using electric instruments and defied the crowd’s requests, come alive off Chalamet’s sniggering performance and masterful musicality.
If you’re viewing A Complete Unknown in the hopes of learning about Bob Dylan the human, you’d best be on guard. Mangold and Chalamet are honouring Dylan as the legendary figure he is. It’s a portrait as to why he garnered such fame, and continues to hold so. The film never makes excuses for his behaviour, but Dylan wouldn’t really ask it to, and it’s that rebellion that perfectly complements the film’s intentions.
FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
A Complete Unknown is screening in Australian theatres from January 23rd, 2025.
