Subversive and captivating, A Complete Unknown exudes the spirit of Bob Dylan through an unaffected and utterly talented Timothée Chalamet. With an oeuvre that spans billion-dollar franchise Dune and cult-favorite indies like Lady Bird, Chalamet’s portrayal of Dylan seems both out of left field and right in line. He’s elusive, moody, mumble-y — an early version of 1960s Bob Dylan as he began his Mach-speed rise to fame. And while it’s not a historical film, per se, history does play a role. Set in the vibrant music scene of Greenwich Village, A Complete Unknown follows a timeline of tumultuous cultural upheaval and features Dylan’s interactions with 1960s icons Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook), Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), and Pete Seeger (Edward Norton).
Roadblocks to filming (a global pandemic and labor strikes in Hollywood) gave Chalamet five years to study Dylan. He’s the first to admit he started with limited knowledge of the songwriter but soon found faith in “‘the church of Bob’”, as he coins it. This should come as no surprise to fans of Dylan, as he’s managed to remain shrouded in mystery even while in the limelight (and it’s hard to tell if this is contrived or unintended). For Chalamet to find connection to him on a deeper level, it had to be through Dylan’s music and lyricism. So he learned guitar and harmonica, and performed 40+ songs live on set — a feat that could’ve gone awry but instead captured Dylan’s gravelly vocals and persona in expert tempo.
The onset of the film places 19-year-old Dylan in a New Jersey hospital, where his idol Woody Guthrie is being treated for Huntington’s Disease. With a subtle blend of hesitancy and arrogance, Dylan plays “Song to Woody” in the presence of Guthrie and Pete Seeger, who happens to be visiting as well. Moved by his raw talent, Seeger takes Dylan under his wing and into the heart of the folk music revival.
In what seems like a Gen Z timeline of rapid-fire TikTok fame, Dylan falls in love with Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning), an artist and political activist renamed for his real-life girlfriend Suze Rotolo; charms Joan Baez, the beloved “barefoot Madonna” of folk music fans and civil rights activists; and transforms into the “spokesman of a generation.” Through his ascent, Dylan is at times transfixed by himself and his ego, coming off as “kind of an asshole” as Baez notes in one scene. In other moments, he’s driven by a vision larger than himself: to unite the person-and-guitar purity of folk music with electric rock. This sort of evolution of self is exactly what should be expected of a twenty-something, to be fair — the only consistence being a stubborn persistence of metamorphosis.
What’s most charming about the film is the cast’s dedication to that same philosophy and sense of play. They set out to be a “humble kind of bridge to this music” and accomplished it. A Complete Unknown showcases Dylan’s knack for translating the human experience and proves that his voice (namely, the way he uses it) still stands even as “The Times They Are a-Changin’.”
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Genre: Music/Drama
Director: James Mangold
Actors: Monica Barbaro, Timothée Chalamet, Elle Fanning, Boyd Holbrook, Scoot McNairy, Edward Norton
Run Time: 140 min
Rating: R for Language
