A Complete Unknown: The Tims They Are A-Changin’ In A Stunning Transformation [Review]

In its heyday, American folk music had a passionate fanbase due, in part, because of the ability of its greatest artists to reveal aspects of America to itself and fight for greater ideals. Like Woody Guthrie’s “Tear The Fascists Down,” Joan Baez’ “Oh Freedom,” or Pete Seeger’s “The Hammer Song (If I Had A Hammer).” When Bob Dylan joined the scene, his mystery and iconoclastic ways were the wind in the sails of the thriving musical community. But his continued drive to innovate and avoid being pinned caused an uproar. Telling the story of Dylan’s fateful pivot to electric instrumentation, James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown is an engaging tale marked by exceptional performances, musical and otherwise, though it is woefully limited in its insight into Dylan’s enigma.

Mangold confidently builds out the world of the early 1960’s folk scene, highlighting the musical movement’s internal politics that are often as conflict-ridden as the external politics they highlighted. It’s a once huge, now somewhat bygone world, and this provides a strong look into the era. Based on Elijah Wald’s “Dylan Goes Electric!,” a chronicle of Bob Dylan’s real-life pivot to embrace electric instruments (and the backlash that caused), the script (co-written by Mangold and Jay Cocks) capably traces Dylan’s enigmatic presence and the splash it thrust upon the American folk scene, giving color and life to many consequential American performers in the era.

Chalamet’s Turn As Bob Dylan Is His Most Immersive Performance Yet

Chalamet genuinely transforms as the enigmatic Dylan, capably capturing both Dylan the man and Dylan the singer. He’s a charismatic complex but there are no rose-colored glasses here–here. Dylan wants fame but loathes its pressures, and it is wildly mercurial in his personal life. He’s a shining light in the folk community, but far from the champion they hoped for, and Chalamet delivers an exceptional performance around it. A Complete Unknown also stars Monica Barbaro who is electric as the passionate Baez, while Fanning plays Chalamet’s one-time paramour with warmth and longing. Edward Norton is also wonderful as popular old-guard folk songwriter Pete Seeger, who champions Dylan but comes to lament Dylan’s growing distance from traditional folk.

The narrative structure in A Complete Unknown is purely linear, with various performances punctuating the story and, at times, fueling major conflicts and plot points. As a consequence, the performances are a consistent focus of the film, and they’re excellent as a whole. Chalamet masters Dylan’s unique cadence, adding significant believability to the transformation. Boyd Holbrook’s excellent as Johnny Cash, while Edward Norton fits Pete Seeger well. Beyond Chalamet’s Dylan, perhaps the most impressive from a vocal standpoint is Monica Barbaro’s turn as Joan Baez, whose excellent and precise vocals must have created difficult songs to master, but Barbaro sounds magnificent.

A Complete Unknown Featurette

Foregrounding the musical performances makes sense for Dylan and the community of folk singers, who often engage with each other, feud, fall for each other’s charms, and make history around and during performances, but it’s nonetheless a bit of a mixed bag from a narrative standpoint, here. Dylan is an iconoclast, a counterculture icon in the right era, but he’s also notoriously difficult to pin down. Does he reject war (for example) because he’s anti-war as an explicit stance, or because he’s edgy, rejecting things simply because they’re the way it’s done by The Powers that Be? He’s a fascinating individual, and his constant drive to avoid being pigeonholed was a consistent thorn in the side of the burgeoning folk movement (traditionalists almost by definition), but the steadfast focus on the performances means, in practice, that we don’t get much insight into Dylan’s motives or inner struggles.

Who is Bob Dylan? The Answer, My Friend, Is Blowin’ In The Wind

A Complete Unknown presents Bob Dylan the Puzzle, the norm-breaker, the perpetual fly in the ointment that doesn’t like to be pinned down by anyone, for anything, at any point, ever. Why? Why is Dylan willing to tank relationships and cause strife because of this ethos, and where does it come from? Greater exploration into Dylan’s inner life for these and other questions would be helpful, and add a lot of insight into Dylan’s character and choices. We get good drama, and Chalamet’s layered performance gives audiences a lot to ponder, but the particular lens here somewhat inhibits the ability to walk out with any more insight on Dylan (beyond biographical facts) than one came in with, as it does for many characters (though some, like Barbaro’s Baez, get a little more scripted depth than others).

A Complete Unknown is a marvelous showcase of performative talent and an engaging window into an important era of musical history. It’s possibly Chalamet’s purest transformation yet, in a magnificent transformation. The cast as a whole shines, and the musical performances work well and sound excellent. The film’s focus on the performances to the detriment of deep introspection do leave a lingering mystery to the mysterious figure and his choices, limiting the insight and depth of the project’s narrative. At the end, it’s a very good biopic of Bob Dylan the musician, and a very limited biopic of Bob Dylan the man.

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