Contains spoilers for the film A Complete Unknown.
Considering the film stars Hollywood’s favorite millennial actor, Timothée Chalamet, I expected A Complete Unknown to get more press attention.
While I consider myself to be up-to-date with film, this movie’s promotions felt few and far between. In comparison with other 2024 movies like It Ends with Us and Wicked (of course), the Bob Dylan biopic stirred up significantly less attention. Besides a Rolling Stone photoshoot and less than five television ads, I heard little of the musical drama.
However, after actually seeing the movie, it’s possible that Dylan actually wanted the movie to slide under the radar.
On a brisk, snowy Saturday—perhaps the epitome of post-snowstorm, Michigan weather—I speed-walked into my local movie theater. As I rushed to escape the increasingly angry wind, I joined a sparse, mostly elderly bunch, accompanying people who were old enough to have lived through the 1960s themselves.
Outside of Dylan’s name and trademark harmonica, I knew nothing about the folk figure.
To be frank, I’d hesitated to even go see the movie in the first place. The film, from the snippets I’d seen online, looked standard, action-movie greige. The plot, while surely based on monumental events, didn’t necessarily entice me. And, outside of Chalamet, I didn’t particularly care for any cast members. Even so, after feelings of indifference, I figured it deserved a try.
The movie, released on Dec. 25, centers around the emergence of Bob Dylan, a legendary folk singer-songwriter from Minnesota. The story begins in Greenwich Village, New York, as the scruffy, naïve, 19-year-old seeks to find his hero, Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy). After impressing his bedridden idol with an original song, Dylan develops a companionship with Guthrie’s close friend and fellow folk singer, Pete Seeger (Edward Norton).
While the movie never informs us why Guthrie is hospitalized—Drug addiction? Accident? Terminal illness?—Dylan continues to visit the ailing singer as he makes a name for himself. However, more so than Guthrie, Seeger—whom Dylan met by mere chance—helps shape Dylan’s career. The comedic, Mr. Rogers-type social activist gives Dylan a place to stay, encouraging him to pursue folk music. Even though the film airs on the more serious side, Seeger offers the needed comedic relief, albeit in short lines and subtle expressions.
While the movie has a talented cast, one star far outshines the rest—and yes, that is the massively popular Chalamet. Besides looking closely akin to the reclusive singer, Chalamet nails Dylan’s voice, actions, and demeanor. Even I, someone with little knowledge about the singer, could recognize the applause-worthy performance Chalamet delivers. Better than any other big-name actor could’ve, the Dune star captures Dylan’s careless and impulsive, yet sensitive, nature.
However impressive, his portrayal was not effortless. Before the production began filming, the actor had a convenient five years to perfect his performance. With the film being shut down in pre-production due to the COVID pandemic, Chalamet spent the first half of the 2020s working on his role as Dylan.
In addition, according to cinematographer Phedon Papamichael, Chalamet repeatedly rewatched the playback of scenes while filming, conscientiously searching for small ways to enhance his performance. Even though it was a slight disturbance on set, Papamichael supported the actor’s commitment to perfection, for Chalamet repeatedly found minuscule ways he could improve the production.
As well as acting, Chalamet nails Dylan’s vocals. As he showed us in the 2023 monstrosity that is Wonka, the actor has a strong singing voice to supplement his acting talent. Adding to the authenticity (and production difficulty) of the biopic, he advocated for the movie’s music to be recorded during the filming of scenes. For reference, most movies film musical scenes with prerecorded sound to avoid unnecessary difficulties with audio. However, whether due to his oddity or Chalamet’s inherent singing talent, the soundtrack turned out exquisite, sounding comparable to Dylan’s originals.
“Once I was in it, there was no coming back—I was fully in the church of Bob,” Chalamet said. “[The director, James Mangold] was quick to walk a fine line between demystifying Bob and not doing a sycophantic thing…We didn’t want to draw conjecture that would have demystified the way life was for Bob in Minnesota. That’s why I love the title of the movie, ‘A Complete Unknown’. Some stuff is left to the imagination, because Bob’s ethos as an artist is the myth of self-creation.”
With the movie leaving Dylan’s pre-fame life a mystery, it surprised me to learn that the singer was involved in the film’s production. While Dylan was by no means a leading executive of the film, he did offer insight to producers. This would seem like a given, but the singer is known as famously reclusive: he didn’t even attend the ceremony for his Nobel Peace Prize, and he’s the only songwriter to ever receive the honor.
However, prior to the production process, Dylan met with Mangold and offered feedback on the film. In addition to some small changes, the singer insisted on including a singular falsified scene that didn’t actually happen (though which scene he made up is anyone’s best guess).
Publically, Dylan has had little to say about the film’s release. In a tweet from December, he validated Chalamet’s acting skills, stating that the actor will be a “completely believable” young Dylan. In addition, in his seemingly humble nature, he didn’t explicitly categorize the movie as being about him. Instead, he described the film as a “fantastic portrayal of events from the early ‘60s that led up to the fiasco at Newport,” the folk festival climax of the movie.
However, it turns out that Dylan isn’t the only one who doesn’t see the movie as a standard biopic. Apparently, the story wasn’t written to be about just Dylan.
“It’s not really a Bob Dylan biopic,” Mangold said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “It’s a kind of ensemble piece about this moment in time in the early ’60s in New York…and this wanderer who comes in from Minnesota with a fresh name and a fresh outlook on life [and] becomes a star.”
As someone who felt overwhelmed watching cross-decade biopics like Oppenheimer, the concept of framing Dylan in a specific few years is refreshing. However, I went into the movie expecting to know Bob Dylan. By the time I exited the theater—almost three hours later—I still did not know Bob Dylan. Naturally, this left me unsatisfied and slightly annoyed.
At the end of the movie, many of my questions were left unanswered. While the film showed us a snapshot of the 1960s, it glazed over important details, only briefly touching on major plot points. By compressing the period into feature-length, the end product felt somewhat randomly pieced together.
Specifically, the relationships of the movie—especially the romantic ones—felt especially undeveloped and “unknown.” Throughout the story, two main women play large roles in Dylan’s life: Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning) and Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro). Before he was famous, Dylan met Russo at a folk festival, and the two dated for the three years following. As his career progressed, she helped him navigate the unfamiliarities of the music industry, even as she was increasingly being pushed to the outskirts of his life. While pictured happily latched onto his arm on his 1973 album cover for The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, her hold on him slowly disintegrated as he gained fame.
Specifically, the fractures in their relationship showed once Dylan partnered with fellow folk singer Baez. With a sweet yet strong nature, she attracted Dylan, pulling him further away from his once quiet life.
With both women playing sizable parts in the trailer and promotional material (which I searched for after seeing the movie), their lack of character depth felt like a failure. In all fairness, the women do play substantial roles in the movie. However, they revolve around Dylan. Even though they both led full lives, they were barely framed outside Dylan’s context.
The movie could’ve benefitted by showing us more of Russo, for she was a civil rights activist. As she quite literally mentions in the movie, her schedule was filled with activities. Baez, on the other hand, had an entire folk music career before (and after) Dylan came onto the scene. In fact, her support and publicity were instrumental in Dylan’s success. Even so, in the movie, her story is siphoned down to its bare bones. She is framed as a two-dimensional character meant to support Dylan’s journey, not as the unique musician she is. (To make up for this, I think Hollywood’s next biopic needs to be about Baez.)
In such a male-dominated movie, diving into these two women’s stories—if only slightly more—could’ve offered a lucrative element to the overall storyline. If the film really is meant to capture this specific moment in time, then why does the story blur the other characters in the face of Dylan’s narrative?
While these stars may not have shined as brightly as Chalamet’s Dylan, in the limited screen time they were given, the two women did put on solid performances. Both were depicted as reserved and ambitious, strong in their quiet-natured ways. However, even with their dispositional similarities, they remain different enough to add complexity and contradiction to the story. Particularly at the end of the movie, you can feel Russo’s emotion and understand the difficult position Dylan put her in. At the same time, Baez’s feelings remain more of a mystery, leaving us wondering how she really handled the story’s events.
While I’ve developed strong opinions after my own research of the plot, I had few after my initial watch. I mean, I was grateful that my restlessness was finally cured. (The movie felt exceptionally long.) But, about the actual film, I felt underwhelmed. It seemed like A Complete Unknown was just another complete, subpar, made-for-a-cheap-buck new movie, joining the likes of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Moana 2. Even as I discussed the film throughout the day, learning more about the time period, my opinion remained negative. With a 5/10-star review on Letterboxd, I’d seen better biopics.
However, as I have let my initial indifference simmer, I’ve been left with a sort of appreciation for the biopic. The more I discover about the period, the more I appreciate the movie. I now see the accuracies that Mangold wove into the film, the beautiful moments he quietly slid into the production. (Even though the movie definitely contains its fair share of “Hollywood-ified” scenes, you’re left with an overall accurate impression of the period.)
Because of this, I believe that you need to have prior knowledge of the 1960s before watching this movie. Without it, the movie fits into the blur of “just okay” films. More than anything else, A Complete Unknown falls short with its inability to truly touch all audiences, regardless of outside education.
To genuinely appreciate the movie, you need to first appreciate the story.
