A Complete Unknown
Review by Mark Woodring
Bob Dylan is an acquired taste, and since I’m more of a Classic Rock guy, I don’t consider myself a fan of his. I don’t hate his music, but it’s not on my normal playlist.
Similarly, I haven’t been the biggest Chalamet fan, either. Recently, in Dune: Part Two, I really loved his performance, which was a nice revelation. It proved he just hadn’t appeal to me, yet, and not that I had some weird, irrational hatred of him.
Now I’ve got a movie featuring two individuals I don’t necessarily love, but I don’t hate them, either.
What could go wrong?
**NOTE: this post may be updated with audio once we actually have the chance to talk about it. Until then, you can read Mark’s review below. Remember, though, you can listen to all our discussions of this and every other movie directly over on ACAST. Stay tuned.**
141 Minutes, Rated R
Written by Elijah Wald, Jay Cooks, James Mangold
Directed by James Mangold
Synopsis:
Set in the influential New York music scene of the early 60s, A Complete Unknown follows 19-year-old Minnesota musician Bob Dylan’s meteoric rise as a folk singer to concert halls and the top of the charts – his songs and mystique becoming a worldwide sensation – culminating in his groundbreaking electric rock and roll performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.
As it turns out, not very much.
Opening with a ode to Woody Guthrie and the earliest days of the Folk music movement, we then meet young Bob Dylan to meet a hospitalized and dying Woody, as well as Folk music advocate Pete Seeger, who sees Bob’s singing/songwriting talents and encourages him.
Chalamet’s portray of Dylan has really sold me on him: Chalamet, not Dylan, lol.
The introspective, yet sometimes assholish, depiction of Dylan really drives home the idea of art for the artist and the expectations of the audience.
Some of the surprising bits of the story for me was the depiction of Joan Baez and her relationship with Dylan. At one of his earlier appearances at a local club, he follows her and asks the crowd to give her another round of applause, noting how pretty she is before adding a bit of dig that she sure sings a little too pretty.
I concur, as we see her later singing some of Dylan’s songs and her performance lacked the roughness that the lyrics to most of his works demand. Sorry that’s more of a musical criticism than a film criticism, but I think it’s important.
As Dylan’s career advances, he desire to evolve often puts him at odds with both his audience and his mentor, Pete.
I was especially impressed by the Newport Folk Music Festival having a riot as Dylan plugs in and blows his Folk roots out of the water, much to the chagrin of both the audience and the organizer, including Pete Seeger, who started both the festival and Dylan’s career.
As I watched Chalamet and Ed Norton play against each other throughout the film, I was reminded of Norton’s reputation as a difficult person to work with, although one who was immensely talented. His ability to throw himself into a role with controlled abandon seems to me to be mirrored in Chalamet’s career choices.
Not that he has a reputation for being difficult to work with that I’m aware of, but his desire to pick roles that don’t pigeonhole him and committing to them is intriguing and somewhat follows Norton’s lead.
I’m thinking that as time goes on, this film might be seen as a bit of a passing of the torch, not that Norton’s career is anywhere near his end by any means.
I left A Complete Unknown with a newfound appreciation for Chalamet’s work, as well as a reminder of how great a lyricist Dylan truly was.
And Chalamet’s singing is top-notch, adding another solid directing job to James Mangold, who turned Joaquin Phoenix into Johnny Cash in Walk the Line.
I highly recommend you catch this one, as it’s good solid entertainment, the kind we need more of in this age of sequels, prequels, and multiversal IPs.
A Complete Unknown hits the stage on Christmas Day and stars Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Boyd Holbrook, Norbert Leo Butz, Dan Fogler, and Scoot McNairy.
And remember, if the BEST thing you can say about a movie is that it’s “visually stunning,” then they’ve done something wrong.
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