Timothée Chalamet is electric in the complete unknown
Woe is a musical biopic—a typical one, anyway. The genre is often heavy and expected, a rote outline of life and career accompanied by renditions of more beloved songs in their original form. Some directors have tried to change things over the years – perhaps most notably Todd HaynesHis 2007 film I’m not there is a strange, abstract evocation of the singer-songwriter Bob Dylanspirit of. That film is so special that one has to assume that a more traditional, accessible film about the generation-defining artist will eventually be made. And so, 17 years later, we have A complete unknownlook back at Dylan’s early career from James Mangold—The director of the Johnny Cash biopic has a show Follow the line. Ho huh.
Except! A complete unknown (opening Christmas Day), which, to this critic’s surprise, was anything but serious and perfunctory. Even a cynic can be carried away by the heady combination of comforting assessment and genuine fear. The film loosely follows the plot: a young Dylan comes to New York from Minnesota and is under the patronage of Pete Seeger (Edward Nortonpristine and sweet) on the road to finding a way out of the folk and into the revolutionary mainstream. But it’s primarily a musical movie, featuring Dylan performing in various locations while people (including us in the audience) look on in amazement. A complete unknown doesn’t tell us much new information about a commonly studied symbol, but it does, like I’m still hereconvincingly captures his essence (albeit in a very different way).
Dylan is played by Timothée ChalametYoung movie stars today, are casting wisely. Chalamet has a strong, boyish appeal that is so central to Dylan’s young image, but cleverly complicates the picture with traits of arrogance, temperament, and aloofness. feelings of those around you. Although we’ve seen that kind of portrait of an artist before — certainly most great artists have at least a little bit of ruthless arrogance in them — Chalamet makes it fresh. To watch him is to feel what so many other characters in the film do: a curious affection and sense of loss as he drifts into the lonely fog of talent and fame.
Chalamet’s Dylan returns to us, intimately and brilliantly, in the singing scenes. The actor and Mangold spent years honing the performance, part imitation, part reinterpretation. Their results were astonishing. Classic songs like “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” and “Like a Rolling Stone” (and many others) are both nostalgically remembered and newly explored in the film, a magic is akin to the feeling of seeing Dylan strum for the first time in some downtown club and being blown away by his extraordinary acumen.
This all sounds epic. But A complete unknown is a surprisingly modest film, with a subdued mood and rhythm. It takes place throughout the early-mid 1960s, in a period that is vividly represented in New York City. (Of course, there are occasional stops in Newport.) There are no drunken, dramatic bouts; All hotel rooms have not been trashed yet. The only spark of discord is in Dylan’s somewhat tangled romantic entanglements, with the character based on a real ex-girlfriend and played by him. Dakota FanningAnd Joan Baezplayed (with great vocals) by Monica Barbaro. But even those quarrels were relatively mild, the women frustrated with hurt and resigned as they, like Pete Seeger and so many others, let Dylan wander in solitary greatness. his poison.
Does the movie give Dylan a pass? That’s a question for true fans, who know more about his personal life troubles than the rest of us. But the film’s perspective — enthralling at a glance — probably won’t generate much animosity either. That could be detrimental to the film. In an argument scene, Fanning’s Sylvie angrily complains to Dylan that she knows nothing about him; he is always at a mysterious distance. She’s not wrong. Dylan’s A complete unknown is almost exactly that: a mystery hidden in the enduring cultural beauty of his songs. It could be a failed narrative or a clever, deliberate metatextual obfuscation.
However, when Chalamet was up there singing, it didn’t matter. One escapes suspicion in the simplest of ways, with beautiful songs arranged with ecstatic and righteous reverence. The film’s main success is to convince us of the director’s fascination, the fascination of generations of fans, the fascination of even the Nobel committee. Maybe the real Bob Dylan used to be the earthquake he had predicted long ago. At least he gets a fascinating vision of the dizzying flowering of genius.
