A James Mangold-told version of a folk music legend’s life story in post-war ‘50s and ‘60s Americana. Sound familiar? Yes, with A Complete Unknown, Mangold is returning to ground he already trod, and been spoofed for, with Walk the Line. With that in mind, you might be thinking that you can probably tell, sight unseen, exactly what this Bob Dylan biopic will be like. Yet, for (often) better and (sometimes) worse, Mangold has flipped the script here, first by hyperfocusing on just three years (1961, 1963, and 1965) in his subject’s life, and second by pushing this story as close to being a musical as it can go without actually stepping into genre territory. It’s the sort of half-Walk the Line, half-Rocketman balance that Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis pulled off perfectly and, while it’s not as good here, it’s still a rollickingly fun recipe.
Timothee Chalamet makes an obvious run at Oscar gold with his transformative turn as Dylan, from the passionate and already assured 20 year old Midwestern kid that first arrives in New York in 1961 to the ‘fuck the man’, sunglasses indoors rebel who will go electric and set the 1965 Newport Folk Festival on fire. Like pretty much every other aspect of A Complete Unknown, Chalamet is at his best when Bob’s on stage, playing guitar and harmonica like a natural and absolutely nailing the distinct Dylan singing voice without descending into parody or overly studied mimicry.
The same can’t always be said off stage – though he’s really solid in ‘61 and ‘63, Chalamet’s ‘65 Bob does feel like a collection of affectations, not quite drilling into the man behind the icon. It’s not a problem you can entirely lay at his feet, though – this is a film much more interested in the music than the people behind it. Mangold and co-writer Jay Cocks shuttle us from song to song to song to song in a way that is entertainingly frenetic but can, on a story level, get borderline incoherent.
Of the core cast, only Elle Fanning (as Sylvie Russo, a fictionalised version of Dylan’s first love) tells more of her story through speaking than singing. Edward Norton (as Pete Seeger), Boyd Holbrook (in a talismanic role as Johnny Cash), and, especially, Monica Barbaro (as Joan Baez) are all exceptional in their musical beats, it can be hard to find great depths in this script and within these characters.
So, does this sacrifice pay off? Yes, just about. All the song performances are deeply involving, from Barbaro doing ‘House of the Rising Sun’ to Chalamet just crushing ‘Blowin in the Wind’, ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, ‘Masters of War’ and more. As with any good musical, though (and that really is the way A Complete Unknown is structured), the best is saved for the curtain-closer of the first act – Dylan’s first performance of ‘The Time They Are A-Changin’. In a film that is otherwise mostly just ‘good’ in the typical way that well-made big awards play biopics are, this scene is transcendent, a bring-the-house-down climax that is worth the price of admission on its own.
After the very disappointing Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, it’s nice to see Mangold back in his more manageable comfort zone of a film that is still *big* but has some room for manoeuvre. Just like Ford v Ferrari, there’s some nice, confident classical populist filmmaking going on here, with rich, sunny colours and immersive soundscapes and sets populated by plentiful extras that are all too rare in modern studio movies – Mangold’s ability to push for this stuff gets taken for granted, but it is genuinely heartening to see. A Complete Unknown is hardly going to be challenging for film of the year but sometimes, especially in awards season, a solid and sweeping three-out-of-five can be exactly what you need.
Jack Blackwell – Film Reviews 