Like the Rolling Stones, the biopic on the best musician since “Elvis” is here.
This is “A Complete Unknown,” an impressive film from director James Mangold about a young Bob Dylan trying to make his mark as a scrappy folk singer in New York.
You’re probably screaming, “Another ‘behind the music’?”
If you, like me, are “tired of this over-extended genre after clunkers likeback to Black” And “I wanna Dance With Somebody”The answer, my friend, is Timothée Chalamet.
The 28-year-old “Dune” actor, who does all his own singing here, was the perfect choice to play Dylan. Really, the only option. He makes films.
Carrying his indie roots like a membership card in every frame, Chalamet has the same pre-arts-fame persona of Dylan, his New York cool, his hair blowing in the wind. Most importantly, he expertly handles the singer’s distinctive nasal sound, both in song and speech. About 40 tunes, all told.
And, because Mangold has made a quiet and intimate film – not a clichéd film that regurgitates tears and tragedy – Chalamet never pushes these characteristics into a silly homage act. Far from an animatronic impersonator, the actor is always honest and believable.
While Mangold and Jay Cox’s screenplay doesn’t delve into the depths of what’s going on in Dylan’s head and heart, Chalamet fills the void with a layered, magnetic, and unexpectedly relatable portrait of a musical genius.
“A Complete Unknown” was inspired by Dylan’s “Three Bucks, Two Bags, One Me!” From 1961 to 1965 has been cleverly covered. Upon arrival in downtown Manhattan he was booed off the stage at the ’65 Newport Folk Festival. The four-year period was the right decision. Depicting a consequential period is almost always better than cramming it into the grave.
Dylan’s first stop after arriving in New York is a hospital in Queens to meet his hero Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy). He plays a song for Woody, who is bedridden and cannot speak, and Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) and they immediately realize that the unbathed baby is the real thing.
The most entertaining part of the film is about mentorship and killing your idols. Seeger and the folk powers (Norbert Leo Butz plays an irascible Alan Lomax) liked Bob’s acoustic songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They’re a-Changin'”, but for them his 1965 rock The Fuel album “Highway 61 Revisited” is practically Satanic.
When a troubled Dylan performs “Like a Rolling Stone”, considered by many to be the greatest rock song of all time, in a thrilling climactic scene in Newport, Seeger and company become horrified that times are indeed changing. How often does a biopic end with the hero being fed?
The other, thinner side is how Dylan’s personal life keeps up with stardom. He lives in a dingy walk-up in Greenwich Village with his lovely girlfriend Sylvie (Elle Fanning), even though his face has been plastered on an LP and he is being humiliated in a bar. Bob is an enigma because he behaves like an alien and also wants normalcy, a contradiction Chalamet nails wonderfully.
Wanderin’ Bob is immediately attracted to singer Joan Baez (Monica Barbero, absolutely wonderful), and cheats on Sylvie (a stand-in for Suze Rotolo) after a set at Gerde Folk City. Bob isn’t particularly kind to either woman – more obsessed with music and song than Sylvie and Joan – and “A Complete Unknown” is nobody’s idea of a romantic movie.
However, it does treat you to a beautifully detailed view of analog New York, where stars dined at the greasy spoons below 14th and future music legends dined in basement clubs. In search of your next meal.
