A Complete Unknown (2024) Review: Timothée Chalamet Delivers One of His Best Performances in the Bob Dylan Biopic
A Complete Unknown is a title that best describes the enigma of Bob Dylan and his transitional period as a singer-songwriter at the height of his fame. The latter is especially true with Dylan doesn’t want to stick to the rigid convention of singing folk songs as he chooses to change his musical style, complete with the heavy use of electric guitar instead of the acoustic string instrument. The title itself is taken from his 1965 song “Like a Rolling Stone”, specifically the chorus “How does it feel, how does it feel? To be on your own, with no direction home. Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone.”
Dylan’s uncharacteristically genre shift to the world of rock music mirrors the singer’s rebellious nature and here, we have Timothée Chalamet imbues his trademark mannerism — low murmurs, distinctive nasal-heavy vocals and volatile personality — with successful results. It wasn’t always like that at the beginning of A Complete Unknown, which begins in 1961 New York City as we first meet the wandering young Dylan holding a guitar case on his shoulder looking forward to meeting his idol, Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy). The latter is now under hospice care due to the Huntington’s disease.
Upon arrival, Dylan notices Woody’s close friend and folk singer Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) is in the hospital room accompanying him. Any doubt about whether Chamalet could pull off Bob Dylan’s singing style had me immediately convinced from the moment he decided to sing his idol a song specially written for him titled “Song to Woody”.
Kudos to Chamalet for capturing the raw emotion and passion in his vocal prowess (yes, he does his own singing here) while strumming his acoustic guitar. Both Woody and Pete are impressed with Dylan’s song. Soon, it was Pete who was kind enough to let Dylan stay with his family and gradually helped him get the right start in the folk music scene. From there, Dylan meets the popular folk singer Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), whose open-mic night in front of eager crowds singing “House of the Rising Sun” showcases the actress’s amazing vocal and guitar performances onstage, who reportedly had months of training to get familiarized with the singing and playing the instrument.
Mangold, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jay Cocks, also deals with Dylan’s personal love life including how he first met Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning, displays a subtle mix of sweet-natured personality and emotional vulnerability in her solid supporting turn). They quickly fall for each other but faithfulness in a relationship isn’t in Dylan’s nature since it doesn’t take long before he has an affair with Joan. The romance angles between Dylan and her respective lovers, Sylvie and Joan are competently executed but Mangold is more interested in focusing on Dylan’s performances onstage and in the recording studio.
Given the singer’s elusiveness, Mangold relies on the expressions conveyed through the lyrical interpretations that Chamalet pours his heart out singing each song. Anyone hoping to learn more about what goes within the inner psyche of Bob Dylan’s head might be disappointed with Mangold’s conventional biopic approach. Still, Chamalet’s dedicated performance helped elevate the movie and he equally benefited from excellent supporting actors all around from Edward Norton’s Pete Seeger to the aforementioned Monica Barbaro and Elle Fanning and even Boyd Holbrook’s wayward turn as Johnny Cash. Interestingly, Mangold initially considered Joaquin Phoenix, who played his Oscar-nominated performance as Johnny Cash in Walk the Line to reprise his role but it didn’t work out due to the aging factor.
Going back to the plot, Mangold doesn’t encompass Bob Dylan’s life stories other than zeroing in on his pivotal 1960s period, giving us crucial moments including the 1964 Newport Folk Festival where Chamalet sings one of Dylan’s famous songs, “The Times They Are a-Changin” in front of the enthusiastic crowds. But it was the 1965 Folk Festival scene that became the movie’s main highlight: the time when Bob Dylan finally broke his boundaries by going all-electric, shocking the unsuspecting crowds with controversial songs like “Maggie’s Farm” and of course, “Like a Rolling Stone”.
