Another year, another music biopic about a problematic genius. James Mangold has of course got previous with Walk The Line. A Complete Unknown isn’t much of a departure from the Johnny Cash film, as it’s also a good character study. Here, the truculent rebel is one Bob Dylan, right at the start of his career.
Focussing on Dylan’s transition from folk hero to rock icon is fine, even if the script is a little join the dots in its trajectory. We all know how his decision to go electric in the mid -sixties upset the folk purists, who wanted their protest songs sweet, simple and unadorned. But the lead performance from Timothee Chalamet is excellent, an impudent, cruel but charismatic contrarian, even if he’s a little too baby faced as the twenty -something Dylan, shaking up the establishment with a cracking ‘Maggie’s Farm’ at the Newport Folk Festival.
Also superb are the supporting actors Edward Norton as good ol’ Pete Seeger is wonderful. You feel for him, trying to hold it together with his nice, measured ways as his young protege upstart lobs a musical hand grenade into his traditional festival. Elle Fanning and Monica Barbaro as, respectively, Sylvie Russo and Joan Baez are also great, two loving women tiring of his laissez faire attitude to romantic relationships.
But the scene with Becka ( Laura Kariuki) his Black British girlfriend, an entirely fictional character, annoyed me- she’s very underwritten and the way he tosses her aside like a cigarette leaves a bad taste in the mouth. It adds little to the plot.
Quibble aside, what Mangold does so beautifully, as with Walk The Line and Girl, Interrupted is provide an evocative sense of time and place. He clearly has a passion for the sixties counterculture. The shots of smoky studio recordings and Iive shows really do feel, for want of a better word, electric. This is why the music here so endures- it’s the real star of the film. Mangold reminds us of the need for the new generation to rise up and push aside the old guard. Rebellion may be something of a quaint concept now, but during the nascent civil rights movement, it was essential.
Available to watch and stream online.
Hit The North 
I haven’t seen this movie yet, but I really want to because I keep hearing how excellent TC is in it. the thing is, I have such a deep respect for Bob Dylan that it’s hard to imagine anyone else stepping into those shoes. it kind of feels like adding something that isn’t real sugar to my coffee. I don’t want to be unfair though.
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It’s definitely a bit too conventional, but the whole cast elevate it. I’d be interested to see what you think of it.
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