Bob Dylan is one of those figures who seems to exist beyond the realm of full understanding, a living enigma whose voice transcends the boundaries of music and culture.
James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown grapples with this very complexity, offering a glimpse into the world of the young Bob Dylan, but never quite unraveling the mystery of the man himself.
This isn’t a conventional biopic, and it certainly doesn’t attempt to decode the elusive genius that Dylan became, but rather it captures a fleeting moment in the early 1960s – when a seemingly unknown folk singer transformed into the voice of a generation.
At its core, A Complete Unknown focuses on Dylan’s arrival in New York City in 1961, a pivotal year in the singer-songwriter’s journey to becoming a cultural icon.
The film chronicles Dylan’s early days in the Greenwich Village folk scene, his growing sense of disillusionment and the struggles he faced as fame enveloped him. Played by Timothee Chalamet in a performance that is as electric as the music it evokes, Dylan is portrayed with an authenticity that doesn’t attempt to imitate, but rather inhabits the spirit of the artist.
His portrayal is less about mimicry and more about channeling Dylan’s essence-a raw, introspective energy that seems to crackle with the intensity of his songwriting and the pain of his isolation. His voice, rough and impassioned, is a revelation, capturing the nasality of Dylan’s early sound while imbuing it with his own energy.
Timothee doesn’t just sing Dylan’s songs; he makes them his own, and in doing so, creates a magnetic, unforgettable presence that holds the film together.
The film doesn’t shy away from the contradictions within Dylan’s character. It examines his aloofness, his discomfort with fame, and his tendency to push away those closest to him. His relationships with Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) and Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning) are portrayed with tender complexity, as both women try to make sense of their connection to a man who seems perpetually out of reach.
While Baez is a steady presence in Dylan’s life, their dynamic is ultimately one of friction, as his growing celebrity and artistic ambitions strain their romantic and musical partnership.
Barbaro captures the quiet strength and vulnerability of Baez, whose own career is cast into shadow by Dylan’s rise. Fanning, on the other hand, portrays Sylvie with a kind of fragility that underscores the inevitable heartbreak her character endures.
As the film shifts focus between these two women, it paints a portrait of a man who, despite his immense talent, struggles to engage emotionally with those who care for him.
What A Complete Unknown excels at is capturing the spirit of the era-the raw energy of the folk movement, the cultural upheaval, and the political tensions that shaped the music of the time.
The film’s portrayal of the village, with its dimly lit coffeehouses and rebellious youth, feels alive with possibility. There’s a palpable sense of the optimism and urgency that defined the early 1960s, as young artists and activists, like Dylan, began to push back against the norms of their time.
The cinematography, handled by Phedon Papamichael, is as much a character in the film as the actors themselves, with its grainy textures and vibrant Kodachrome colors evoking the period in a way that feels both authentic and cinematic.
The set design, from Dylan’s messy apartment to the vibrant folk clubs, gives the film an immersive quality, grounding it in the specific time and place that birthed some of Dylan’s most famous works.
Yet, while the music is undoubtedly the film’s beating heart, it is also here that the film stumbles slightly. The performances – Timothee’s renditions of Dylan’s songs and the other musical moments – are stirring and expertly done.
But the film occasionally feels repetitive, as if it is trapped in a cycle of Dylan’s alienation and resistance to fame. The repeated images of Dylan on his motorcycle, sunglasses obscuring his eyes, hiding from the world that admires him, begin to feel somewhat monotonous.
There’s a sense that the film could delve deeper into the emotional complexity of Dylan’s relationships and the personal toll of his rapid rise to fame, but instead, it remains somewhat distant, much like its central figure.
The film’s title, A Complete Unknown, is fitting in some ways, as Dylan’s true self remains as elusive in this film as it was in life. The script, based on Elijah Wald’s Dylan Goes Electric, touches on key moments in Dylan’s evolution, including his famous 1965 performance at the Newport Folk Festival, where he famously “went electric,” shocking his folk audience.
But this moment comes late in the narrative, and while it’s a crucial turning point in Dylan’s career, it is handled almost as an afterthought – more of a coda than the culmination of the film’s story.
The film’s reluctance to delve too deeply into the emotional or philosophical motivations behind Dylan’s musical evolution, or the reasons why he chose to defy his folk roots, leaves the narrative feeling slightly unfocused in places.
Despite its structural flaws, A Complete Unknown succeeds in offering an evocative, immersive look at the music and the world from which Dylan’s genius emerged. The folk music scene in Greenwich Village is captured with meticulous detail, from the student protests to the grassroots activism, all of which played a part in the formation of the music that defined a generation. The production design and costumes work in harmony to bring the period to life, never drawing attention to themselves but instead grounding the film in a world that feels both lived-in and timeless.
At its heart, this is a film about the cost of genius and the loneliness that often accompanies it. Dylan’s greatest gift was his ability to channel the anger, hope, and confusion of a generation into his songs. But the film doesn’t shy away from the fact that this gift came at a personal cost – his inability to form meaningful, lasting relationships and his detachment from the world around him. This is a portrait of a man who, despite all his success, remained profoundly alone, always searching for something that remained just out of reach.
In the end, A Complete Unknown is a film that mirrors its subject -distant, elusive, and impossible to fully grasp. But it’s also one that, much like Dylan’s music, lingers long after the credits roll. It’s a love letter to an era, to a man, and to the music that shaped a cultural revolution. While it may not provide all the answers, it captures the spirit of the times, the music, and the man at its heart, making it a deeply satisfying experience for anyone who has ever been touched by Bob Dylan’s music.
