150 Word Review: 'A Complete Unknown' (2024)
The music, man
I was never a Bob Dylan fan—I didn't grow up with the famed folk singer’s music like many of my friends, whose parents worshipped the poet-slash-pop star. My folks loved Fats Domino and Patsy Cline.
Guess what? His songs rule, even when sung by movie star Timothée Chalamet.
Director James Mangold mixes myth and melody in A Complete Unknown, an above-average rock-and-roll biopic that isn’t a boring beat-by-beat rundown of Dylan’s life. Mangold focuses on his early formative years and tells that story with timeless songs. It’s a simple story: a student betrays his teacher.
Chalamet becomes Dylan without impersonating the man. It's a magnetic performance—he’s insufferable and endearing, a boy genius and a brat. Monica Barbaro's Joan Baez is formidable, a powerful talent who becomes weary of Dylan's schtick. Ed Norton is terrific as folk legend Pete Seeger, Dylan's mentor until Dylan turns his back on Seeger's down-to-earth sanctimony.
I thought Chalamet was so uninspired I this role, could never imitate the cool factor Bob had in the 60s. The story of him going electric is so well known that I learned nothing new and had to sit through horrendous scenes like the writing of Blowing in the Wind or the laughable excuse for romance we see in the Masters of War sequence.
Yeah I liked this movie a lot. 5 years is easier to cover than 70. I also was not sure Chalamet was doing the Dylan singing.