REEL | Timothée Chalamet Walks Hard – 'A Complete Unknown'

"Every deck has two jokers, don't it?"

Searchlight Pictures

America's boyfriend Timothée Chalamet channels a young, pre-Highway 61 Revisited era of Bob Dylan, chronicling the folk singer's rise to fame in the early-'60s New York City set A Complete Unknown, based on the 2015 book Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties by music historian Elijah Wald. Journeyman director James Mangold helms the period musical biopic with a measured verve and mastery of performances filmed in the moment with the actors recorded singing live to camera.

Chalamet plays the enigmatic Dylan with an appropriate amount of mysterious, mumbling charm and a strong disinterest in his own made-up, unknowable origins. While the likes of Edward Norton, Monica Barbaro, Boyd Holbrook, and Elle Fanning co-star as Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, and a Freewheelin' Suze Rotolo stand-in, it's the hot young actor's aloof presence that makes the film so vibrant without the usual trappings of legacy or mythmaking. Many of the other supporting characters constantly exclaim what an asshole the young musician is being, despite the constant adoration of others.

Mangold succeeds in the remarkable feat of making the influential story of Dylan's rise to stardom feel small and personal despite its thundering impact on music history. How he weaves the songwriter's influences and changing time period through a narrative of rebellion, protest, and defying expectations only furthers the icon's image, both real and idealized, the public has put on the singer.



Adapted by Mangold and frequent Scorsese collaborator Jay Cocks, every song chosen and filmed live fits into the contained story about Dylan's relationship with the Greenwich Village folk music community and his highly controversial decision to switch to electric guitars at the infamous 1965 Newport Folk Festival set where he was booed mercifully and stormed off stage vowing never to return for thirty-seven long years.

Not unlike the previous arthouse musical depiction very loosely inspired by Dylan's music and life as six distinct personas, Todd Haynes' absorbing I'm Not There, there's a strong, anonymous detachment to dramatizing the unknowable singer's supposed origins that may turn off or frustrate some audiences. However, fans will likely regard the respectable biopic as an accurate representation of his defiant, sometimes confrontational legacy.

Not just a film about the elusive genesis of Bob Dylan between 1961-55, the film is a chronicle of his start and the constant turning of his back against the expectations put upon him as a folk rock superstar beyond his music, lyrics, and songs. A Complete Unknown proves to be an extremely well-made and pleasant time capsule of great music told and framed expertly through history. Chalamet's performance is legit as his star power continues to rise.


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