It feels a bit strange to describe Bob Dylan — of all people — as someone who is “trending.”
After all, he is one of the most important and influential musicians of all time — not only among Americans, but worldwide. His more than 60-year-old catalog features 40 studio albums and 12 live albums, with songs that have been covered by everyone from Nina Simone to Adele, and musicians from John Lennon onward have cited his songwriting as inspiration.
Dylan’s stature as a cultural figure is eternal — there’s no question about it. But James Mangold’s 2024 biopic, “A Complete Unknown,” has pushed him back into the spotlight, introducing his music and persona to a new generation of young people by way of an expert casting decision.
Gen Z darling Timothée Chalamet has had an all-timer of a press tour in promotion of “A Complete Unknown” — odd, unpredictable and never not-entertaining.
He made a grand entrance — via Lime electric bike — to the film’s UK premiere. He had a thoroughly-memed interview with a Canadian journalist, singing the praises of Milk Duds. And most recently, he made an appearance on SNL where he both hosted and performed as the musical guest — choosing three deep cuts that proved his Dylan scholarship has been more than skin-deep.
Chalamet has been campaigning hard for his Oscar — cozying up to the press far more than the real Dylan ever did — and it seems to be working.
After racking up eight Academy Awards nominations — including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Chalamet — “A Complete Unknown” may be poised to win big at the Oscars on March 2, especially considering the swath of controversies that have surrounded many other heavily-nominated films, notably “Emilia Perez” and “The Brutalist.”
Despite a runtime of 2 hours and 21 minutes, “A Complete Unknown” is more of an extended music video than a movie — keeping the pace quick and the length almost undetectable. The songs are the real set pieces, while the drama often takes a backseat.
Instead of the traditional “cradle-to-grave” format that many traditional music biopics take — including Mangold’s own Oscar-winning “Walk the Line” — “A Complete Unknown” opts for a condensed timeline. The movie covers four years in Dylan’s life, from his arrival to New York City in 1961 to his infamous electric performance at the Newport Folk Festival in July 1965.
By way of its shortened structure, it manages to avoid several painful clichés of the genre — like the regrettable descent into drug addiction or the saccharine childhood flashback, just to name a few.
Sometimes, the emphasis on Dylan’s musical achievements led to weak dialogue and cheesy moments that ultimately feel superficial. The film’s script, co-written by Mangold with screenwriter Jay Cocks, is certainly not an achievement in subtlety.
Mangold is seemingly uninterested in deeply examining Dylan’s interiority or explicating the lyrics of his songs through events in his personal life. He is similarly uninterested in Dylan’s exteriority, rarely referencing the tumultuous political upheaval of the 1960s which influenced the rousing protest songs that first brought him wide acclaim.
But Dylan’s early work is, nonetheless, undeniably remarkable.
“Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” and “It Ain’t Me Babe,” along with over a dozen other of his early masterpieces, are given their time to shine. The camera frequently sweeps over scenes of enraptured fans and admirers, whose eyes take in Chalamet’s Dylan like a Steven Spielberg character gazing at a shooting star.
Chalamet — although unable to fully capture Dylan’s unique phrasing and intonation — gives a performance that is both wholly transformative and never flashy or imitative. His self-assured interpretation of the film’s undefinable subject is impressive.
Equally undeniable are the supporting performances by Elle Fanning, Edward Norton and Monica Barbaro as Sylvie Russo — a fictionalized version of Dylan’s early girlfriend Suze Rotolo — Pete Seeger and Joan Baez, respectively.
Again, those hoping for a deep exploration of Bob Dylan will likely be disappointed.
The film’s title, “A Complete Unknown,” serves as a guide for how it approaches its subject material. Mangold’s script works to uphold the mythology of Dylan as an unknowable artist — who, from the beginning, was reluctant to be defined by others and by himself.
Dylan has long been viewed as an enigma — a shapeshifter if you will. Todd Haynes’ experimental 2007 biopic “I’m Not There” literalized this concept on the silver screen, dividing the musician into six separate characters performed by six different actors.
Ultimately, unlike “I’m Not There,” “A Complete Unknown” is a slick and fairly formulaic Hollywood biopic, expertly manufactured to receive awards and please nostalgic Baby Boomer fans.
But that’s not to say it should be lumped in with recent embarrassments like “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Back to Black.” And those itching to compare the film to the 2007 parody “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” should think twice before doing so.
If anything, “A Complete Unknown” is simply a great time at the movies — just seeing Chalamet’s closing performance of the film’s namesake, “Like a Rolling Stone,” might be worth the price of admission alone.
