"A Complete Unknown" is a step above its recently released music biopic peers, namely "Elvis" and "Bohemian Rhapsody," but still falls into too many traditional pitfalls of the genre to be great.
Directed by James Mangold, famed for "Ford v Ferrari" and "Logan" and starring Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan, the film depicts Dylan as he comes to New York with nothing but a guitar and catapults into stardom in a mere four years.
To open on a positive note, all of the songs in "A Complete Unknown" were recorded live. Mangold’s decision to move away from the traditional lip-syncing used in most music biopics makes the film feel lived in — viewers are transformed into bystanders witnessing and hearing a moment in folk music history.
It also helps that Chalamet really committed to portraying Dylan, as he worked on the icon's singular style and cadence for over five years. Even though Dylan is an incredibly daunting person to attempt to step into, Chalamet is fantastic, rendering himself indistinguishable at times.
Quickly upon arriving in New York, the protagonist meets Sylvie Russo, played by Elle Fanning, who is based on Dylan’s former girlfriend Suze Rotolo. Fanning might give my favorite performance in the film, always teetering between being on the edge of tears or verbally berating the dissociative Dylan.
However, she has very little to work with in the film, as most of her time consists of reaction shots to Dylan’s live performances, making her more of a substitute for audience reactions than a character with her own story.
The film falls into a similar trap with another love interest of Dylan’s, Joan Baez, played by Monica Barbaro. Baez was a titan of the early '60s folk scene in her own right, something that is pretty poorly displayed in the film. In reality, Baez was far more than the star-crossed lover who Dylan was forced to do a joint tour with — she was an essential part of his rise to stardom.
These shortcomings result in a film that is more interested in what it would be like to be around Dylan as he rose to fame, than one actually about him. A film interested in what makes him such a world-renowned star would not omit Baez in the ways it does and would certainly not gloss over Dylan’s political inspirations or impact.
Mangold creates an essentially apolitical film about one of the most politically active artists of his time. In the film, Dylan has to ask what CORE is and his iconic protest performance in Washington, D.C. is a mere three seconds of the film. Mangold is too scared to actually make a statement about Dylan's blatantly politically charged music so he instead focuses on his transition into rock 'n' roll from traditional folk music at the Newport Folk Festival.
