A Complete Unknown

Whenever I say I'm growing bored of biopics, I often mean I'm growing tired of the formula they seem all too happy to rest within. Rocket Man, Bohemian Rhapsody, Elvis, you name it, these films are falling into tireless box office and Oscar bait, without really offering much that you couldn't learn within the pages of an autobiography and the Spotify playlist of the artist they centre on.

However, even though I never get excited for these films, occasionally one will come along that does impress. James Mangold's A Complete Unknown tells the story of Bob Dylan. Or, more specifically, it tells the story of Dylan's rise to fame and departure from folk music to carve out his own identity with rock and roll.

This more concise story certainly fits A Complete Unknown, and it allows us to dig deeper into the character of Dylan and the people that shaped his early life and career. Compared with Baz Luhrmann's Elvis, which hops from important points in the artist's life with all the breadth and importance of a TikTok, Mangold really gives us time to breathe in the time and place that Dylan broke out in. For those of you who prefer Dylan's later catalogue, unfortunately you can't hear Timmy C performing much of it, but we get plenty of folk hits, including renditions of other songs from the stars of the time.

Timothée Chalamet is an absolute star in this film. His portrayal of Dylan is as nuanced as it is enthralling to watch, and his voice isn't half-bad either, although there are moments when the impersonation drops, especially during his singing. Still, he feels perfectly poised to play the role of Dylan, especially the one we see in this movie.

Something that often irks me when watching a biopic is when the film seeks to deify the artist or person it's following. Of course, these people are of great import, otherwise they wouldn't have a movie about them, but there is a point where the praise becomes insistent, and goes beyond just acknowledging importance and instead seeks to establish a new timeline of the world, centred entirely on when this artist was born, active, and died. Bohemian Rhapsody and even Oppenheimer are guilty of this, and yet A Complete Unknown does not want Dylan to be its golden goose. If anything, that role is reserved for Elle Fanning's Sylvie Russo, who at many times feels like the heart of the movie.

At no point does she open her mouth to sing, nor is she as prescient as Monica Barbaro's Joan Baez, but Sylvie does often feel like our POV character throughout the film. She sees Dylan's rise from singing in old churches to sold-out festivals, and the ever-growing feeling that he's becoming too big for her feels like it carries the emotion for a lot of the film's first half. This isn't to do any disservice to Barbaro or any of the other cast members in the movie. Barbaro's singing voice is incredible to hear and despite my distaste for biopics, it had me interested in knowing more about Baez herself. Edward Norton is also a strong constant throughout the film as Pete Seeger, someone who begins the story as Dylan's mentor, and yet also feels outgrown by him towards the end. Seeger is a great comparison to keep as we watch Dylan's rise, which paces the film nicely.

Some of the additional cameos and side characters are introduced oddly, especially Bob Neuwirth, who stands in the back of an elevator waiting until the camera points at him like Nick Fury in the first MCU movies. Appearances like these create the same feeling as JFK's nod in Oppenheimer. Rather than create a sense of intrigue, they only serve to make you snap out of any pretence that what you're seeing before you is a real story. They're manufactured, corny, and unfortunately a staple of these types of films.

Boyd Holbrook's appearance as Johnny Cash doesn't have any of that, though, as he's brought in steadily through the film, a looming presence that reminds me of the best biopic in 2005's Walk the Line. In some ways, A Complete Unknown is much like that film, and as it's stacked with some classic Dylan hits as well as plenty of other songs to get your foot tapping in the cinema, it made for an enjoyable evening. But, at times it does fall into the trap of being a biopic, and for the first half can feel like we're floating through a slice of life featuring Bob Dylan. However, the end result is a well-directed, fantastically acted film that would stand on its own even without Dylan's music bolstering its enjoyability.