“A Complete Unknown” - Film Review
Bob Dylan is regarded as one of the most notable American writers, and is the first songwriter to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. It’s no wonder that Hollywood would turn to Dylan’s life as source material for a feature film, but it’s a bit of a surprise that it took this long. A Complete Unknown, directed by James Mangold, chronicles Bob Dyaln’s life from 1961 to his famous “electric” set at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. While Dylan is known for his beautiful lyricd and introspection, A Complete Unknown only provides a surface-level look at one of America’s greatest songwriters.
Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) is a midwestern boy who grew up on folk music legends like Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) and Pete Seeger (Edward Norton). When he hears that Guthrie has been admitted to the hospital, Bob hitchhikes to New Jersey to meet his hero and play a song for him. It’s this fateful meeting that sends Dylan down the path to fame, where he meets fellow up-and-comer Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro). The two have a tempestuous relationship that plays out throughout the course of the four years that A Complete Unknown covers. Joan isn’t the only love interest of Bob’s who is featured. Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning), an artist in her own right, was his longtime girlfriend and the woman on the cover of his famous 1963 album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.
Courtesy of Searchlight
What is the purpose of a biopic? It’s a question that’s difficult to answer, because rarely do the makers of this genre want to paint a true picture of their subject. Instead, a biopic is more like a victory lap. A celebration of the life and achievements of a person. A Complete Unknown introduces audiences to the icon that is Bob Dylan, but not the twenty-something kid named Robert who was rocketed to a level of fame he couldn’t comprehend. Those who come into A Complete Unknown without knowledge of Bob Dylan will leave the exact same way. The film doesn’t show the life experiences that inspired songs like “The Times They Are A-Changin'.” We just see him perform it at the Newport Folk Festival. In 1965, Bob wants to make music that’s closer to rock than folk, but we don’t know why. A Complete Unknown is simply overloaded with songs and performances from Dylan and the other singer/songwriters of that era. It’s fun to see these modern actors sing classics, but it wears thin as the film plods on without giving the audience any insight into these characters.
Courtesy of Searchlight
A Complete Unknown does its female characters dirty. There’s no other way around it. Sylvie and Joan, aside from being accomplished artists in their own right, are real women who had lives, dreams, and goals. Yet in A Complete Unknown, they exist to orbit around Bob Dylan. Their lives begin and end in relation to their proximity to him. The audience doesn’t even learn Sylvie’s name until she and Bob have moved in together and established a relationship. It’s clear that Sylvie not only played a role in Bob’s personal life, but her involvement in Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and other social justice issues, by Bob’s own admission, played a major role in his songwriting. A Complete Unknown treats Sylvie as a woman who exists in the wings only to cry over the fact that Bob is sleeping around. Despite not having much to work with, Fanning and Barbaro are marvelous. Unlike Chalamet, who is trying to mimic Dylan’s every mannerism (to the detriment of his own performance), Fanning and Barbaro have taken the essence of the real women they’re portraying, but haven’t bound themselves to every idiosyncrasy. By doing so, they have created more textured and layered performances, even though the script gives their characters little to work with.
A Complete Unknown plays out like a greatest hits album. All of Bob Dylan’s most famous tunes are featured, but not much else. The times may be a-changin’, but A Complete Unknown follows the familiar beats of a biopic that doesn’t shake the establishment in the way its subject is so famous for doing.
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