A Complete Unknown

I’ve written a lot recently about biopics and also, when discussing Nosferatu, posited the difficulty of defining something iconic.

Combine those two trains of thought and, with A Complete Unknown, James Mangold and Timothee Chalamet have the unenviable task of defining the undefinable Bob Dylan whilst also choosing how to frame his story.

What ensues is a generally traditional biopic but with a slightly meandering and dreamlike intangibility which, like its subject, keeps us just slightly removed and constantly leaning in to get closer.

Choosing to begin with Dylan arriving into the Greenwich Village scene and releasing his first album and ending post-Newport but pre-motorcycle crash gives enough scope to show his growth as an artist and pivot into electric music but still enables the film to focus in on just a select few years rather than a full life story.

It’d be lovely to get a second part to this showing Dylan’s further career (although that appears unlikely to happen) but what we have here can lay some claim to being the definitive portrayal of this part of his life and this era of music.

Let’s discuss Chalamet first of all. This is an awards-worthy master performance. Crucially, it isn’t a caricature and doesn’t appear at any stage like he’s ‘trying too hard’ (this is meant as a compliment.)

He exudes movie star charisma but retains enough of his own charismatic essence in the performance.

It’s absolutely iconic and up there with some of the other immaculate Dylan portrayals (Cate Blanchett in I’m Not There comes to mind.) Learning the songs and playing live on set means the performance sequences will often drop your jaw.

Again, there’s just enough leftover to not be a full on parody version but some of the vocals, harmonica and guitar playing, and stagecraft is enough to blow the mind at points.

And the film is mostly music. Some of the songs are shortened versions but played in full and this feels right and apt when portraying an artist so guarded in life but so open in his writing. It hits most of the crucial songs of the period and is an absolute treat for fans.

This focus on music does leave some of the wider plot scrapping away in the background. We time jump regularly and suddenly. It’s not off putting but it does require your attention and there isn’t huge amounts to glean from what we see onscreen that you won't already know.

Whilst that’s likely the point, and no one is here to unveil the enigma that is Dylan and nor could they, it does mean that you are sometimes biding time between the music sequences.

It does also fall a little into that biopic trap of deifying its subject. The truly transcendent biopics are often those which show the darker side and, whilst this tries at certain points, it just falls the wrong side of the line in the main.

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, and it’s completely understandable given the genius of the man being presented, but again it just leaves a little shadow of something being missing from the film.

What we have here though is a hugely enjoyable, toe tapping, beautiful looking, impeccably performed and well presented look at a few years in the life of one of history’s greatest artists.

A little enigmatic, a little untruthful, a little exaggerated, a little fidgety, a little guarded and a little scatty but a lot of unbridled genius, much like the man himself.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️