A Complete Unknown

A Complete Unknown is a biographical drama that explores Bob Dylan’s early career during the transformative 1960s. The film traces Dylan’s journey from Minnesota to New York City, where he quickly rose to prominence in the folk music scene.

A Complete Unknown Review

2005’s Walk the Line explored the human condition through the lens of Johnny Cash’s tumultuous life. In it, audiences are treated to a story of loss and love, emotional peaks and valleys, and the consequences of the soaring but ultimately empty heights of fame. Along the way, the storytellers used Cash’s songbook as a vessel to help carry viewers along on the journey – a tool used to enhance their sense of knowing the man.

Conversely, like February’s Bob Marley: One Love, A Complete Unknown misses most of the point of being a movie. Timothée Chalamet gives a breathtakingly nuanced performance as the seemingly spectrum-adjacent, deeply private Dylan in what is ultimately a two-and-a-half-hour Behind The Music doc that covers what seems to have been the most uninteresting meteoric rise to stardom in the history of the modern music industry. In spite of appearing to be a deeply introverted man, Chalamet performs a feat of magic as he draws you into a full range of emotions almost entirely via his eyes, silencing critics like myself who haven’t been overly impressed with him as a performer heretofore.

That said, whereas the deeply flawed One Love gave us vignettes of Marley and crew being inspired to create—laughing, working, and alternately mourning with one another—A Complete Unknown treats us to scene after scene of Dylan sitting quietly mumbling to himself as he churns out hit after hit seemingly from thin air.

With the secondary characters being a distant second, what interpersonal conflict that is exhibited is largely well done but childish relationship drama that goes nowhere. The result is that viewers are given little with which to connect. However, what hurts the movie more than the apparent ease of The Bard‘s journey to superstardom or his arm’s-length relationships is that Dylan is portrayed as a nearly silent, brooding, and unlikable douché who repeatedly and unnecessarily hurt those closest to him in his neverending self-indulgence.

In fact, A Complete Unknown culminates with Dylan

, but he doesn’t do it out of passion or some other understandable, if still inexcusable, emotion. No, his motivation is that of a spoiled brat who wants to divorce himself from a particular genre of music. Yet despite his ability to weave together chart-topping poetry that communicated the contents of his heart and mind to millions, he opts to leave folk music not with words but a blaze of destructive self-indulgence.

Be that as it may, A Complete Unknown isn’t without its commendable features. As mentioned above, Chalamet does more with this navel-gazing, emotionless egotist than any other actor since Joaquin Phoenix in 2019’s Joker. That he’s a better singer than Dylan doesn’t hurt.

Likewise, for all the constraints placed upon the scope of their roles, the supporting cast is equally excellent. Ed Norton does his usual next-level best to imbue Peter Seeger with a gentle thoughtfulness that is as different from the behind-the-scenes rumors of Norton himself as the day is from the night.

Similarly, Monica Barbaro, who plays Joan Baez and is probably best known as Phoenix in Top Gun: Maverick, gives it her all and subsequently raises up her few brief moments on screen from what would have otherwise been cinematic afterthoughts to first-class fare. So, too, does Elle Fanning prove that she’s all grown up and ready for big girl roles.

Perhaps most surprisingly, Scoot McNairy provides the film’s breakout performance as the terminally ill and consequently mute Woody Guthrie. Indeed, McNairy is given the only role in the movie with any existential gravitas, and even in his silence, he takes full advantage of his fleeting screen time, showing that he deserves much larger roles in much better films.

If you noticed the film’s overall score at the top of this review, you’ll see that we also found the visuals and direction to be excellent. Together with brilliant performances, these elements carry A Complete Unknown throughout, making it seem a much better film than it is. Writer/director James Mangold (Logan) should be as lauded for his visual storytelling and the film’s structural cohesion and tight natural dialogue as he should be derided for its unremarkable plot and thin – almost non-existent subplots.

Ultimately, A Complete Unkown fails to provide a compelling reason to learn more about Bob Dylan, who, if the movie can be believed, was (at least at that time in his life) an unrepentant prick. However, if you’re already a Dylan fan and you already know about the time in his life leading up to his discovery – a time that is only hinted at in this film and sounds far more interesting – then you’ll likely enjoy this film.

WOKE ELEMENTS

Ballad In Plain C (For Commie)

• Considering the time period, the perspective of much of Dylan’s most iconic works, and the people surrounding him at the time in which the movie is set, the film was shockingly restrained from presenting a socio-political point of view of any kind. Pete Seeger, who Ed Norton plays, was not only a prolific folk singer/songwriter but also a devout Stalinist and anti-Vietnam activist. Likewise, in real life, the film’s emotional anchor, Woody Guthrie, was an unrepentant socialist and anti-capitalist best known for his communist anthem This Land Is Your Land. Yet, despite the importance of these characters to what thin narrative the film possesses, their political stances are almost never mentioned and are of zero consequence to the film.
  • The singular exception is that of Seeger’s introduction, which takes place during a hearing that seems to exist solely to establish his political position. It is brief and of no more importance to the rest of the film other than as an excuse to play This Land is Your Land. However, since it could have easily been left out and seemed to only want to make sure that the audience would know that this gentle and reasonable-seeming man was a communist, it cost the movie a point on the Woke-O-Meter.