So there’s a Bob Dylan biopic again. Y’all excited? I know I wasn’t. I’ve never gotten into Bob Dylan ever. I never heard of him until I was an adult watching too many music docs on VH1 and MTV. I’ve listened to him so that I could know. I did the same with The Beatles (who at least had cool films), Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and The Beach Boys so I could understand what the musical institutions care so much about this music that I had never heard or heard about in my late 20th century Black American upbringing. This film did have one thing going for it; when I decided to attend the screening, my guy Timothée Chalamet, aka Himothée, playing Bob Dylan, and for my uncultured eyes, he fit the part. He is one of the few people in his generation who is actually becoming a legit movie star, and I was willing to give this biopic a chance to hold my attention. I have to say James Mangold impressed me with A Complete Unknown as not only did I enjoy the film, but I was invested in the story and in Bob Dylan.
The film, based on the 2015 book Dylan Goes Electric! by Elijah Wald, covers the beginnings of Dylan’s career up to the point in 1965 at the Newport Folk Festival when he decided to use electric instruments. From there, you get what you expect from a biopic, for the most part. There is no big downfall and rebirth because of drugs or other things. It’s just the rise and Dylan’s rebelliousness against what others feel he should be versus what he wants to be. The film also focuses on his love triangle, Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning), a character based on Suze Rotolo and Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), which I found to be pretty captivating as I didn’t know Dylan was macking like that. I was most impressed by Barbaro, who not only looks very much like Baez in the film but also makes me quite interested in her as, again, I don’t care much to know about her. Folk music just isn’t my bag, y’all. Barbaro and Fanning both have great chemistry, with Chalamet as his two love interests. Chalamet, I have to say, did very well as Dylan, especially with the singing; while I’m not an expert, it sounded close enough to work in a film about Dylan, and he was able to capture that aura of the man as you can see in stuff from the sixties.
Out of all that stuff what impressed me the most was Edward Norton as Pete Seeger. I feel he morphed into him, but it wasn’t an impression of him. I knew a bit more of Seeger than most of the other artists portrayed in this film, and I was like, damn Ed Norton, you’re killing it, and so are the Hair, Makeup and Costuming folks cause you nailed it. Mangold is a filmmaker I’ve liked a lot here, especially the way he and his team made just a solid film that looked and felt like the sixties. Phedon Papamichael, the cinematographer, deserves credit here for the color and use of light to frame these actors in the scenes. The music performances sound terrific and don’t feel like a chore to sit through. I don’t really have much more to say about A Complete Unknown; it’s good, and I was entertained. The actors did a great job, and it made me interested in Bob Dylan while I watched it. So kudos to them, but oh, one last thing: I really liked Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash. I’m always interested in Johnny Cash. So yeah, folks will enjoy this, and I think Dylan fans should be happy overall.
Score: B
