A-Directed by James Mangold Starring Timothee Chalamet, Melissa Barbaro, and Ed Norton Review by Jon Kissel |  |
Sitting down for a new musician biopic is a semi-annual tradition, and after so many that haven’t learned the ironclad lessons of Walk Hard, the expectation is not high. Of the several that come out every year, most aren’t trying to do anything more than reinvigorate sales of the musician’s catalog. The many movies like it are what makes A Complete Unknown so surprising. James Mangold’s depiction of Bob Dylan has the high-profile cast and the music and the scenes of casual artistic inspiration, but it’s also sad and knowing, both about the time of its setting and the nature of celebrity. This is as good as the musician biopic gets.
Mangold and co-writer Jay Cocks earn their success by refusing to go cradle-to-grave on Timothee Chalamet’s Dylan. He appears in New York City with a backstory that he refuses to share and the film rolls credits after only several years instead of decades later. By not biting off too much of Dylan’s life, A Complete Unknown can focus on a digestible meal. That meal is served up by the character that bookends the film; a voiceless, hospitalized, terminal Woody Guthrie (Scott McNairy) that Dylan frequently visits. As he’ll be an inspiration to others, Guthrie was Dylan’s inspiration, and their initial meeting is the first clue that the viewer is watching something greater than a jukebox musical. Dylan sings Song to Woody for his idol, an admiring but bitter ode that appreciates his contribution to a country that ignored his message. This vision of the 60’s that Mangold leads with, a drab place where the prophets are mute and the chance has been lost, suffuses Chalamet’s dead-eyed and irritated performance while it also informs Dylan’s approach to folk music, something he views as a fad that he can take advantage of until the next inspiration strikes.
As painful and disempowering as Dylan’s encounter with Guthrie is, that’s not how Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) interprets it. For him, folk music was and remains a path to a better country with better citizens. While he doesn’t connect with Dylan’s manner, he does recognize his talent, and Seeger puts him in the right clubs with the right crowds. He strikes up a professional, and eventually romantic, relationship with fellow folk icon Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), though she quickly tires of his arrogance and aloofness. Non-musician Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning) takes Baez’s place in Dylan’s life, but their relationship is no calmer. As Dylan’s career takes off, he soon finds himself in hypocritical situations, playing in Manhattan penthouses for elites toe-tapping to songs of quiet revolution. He’s shown having less in common with crowd-pleasers like Baez and Seeger and more with iconoclasts like Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook), which leads Dylan to assemble a new band and try out a new sound, much to the consternation of Seeger and his pals who like folk music specifically because it never changes, though they always want to hear The Times They Are A-Changing.
By this point in his career, it’s safe to say that Chalamet isn’t going to be the kind of movie star with range. Instead, he’s getting better and better at playing variations on a theme, which for him, is heartbroken or wounded character fighting against their worst impulses. His characters can’t find their place, and both revel in and hate their outsider status. Some part of Chalamet’s Dylan would like to be kinder, but that part isn’t greater than the clear satisfaction he gets from his primary look, which is a superior disinterest that Chalamet uses like a laser. He often regrets using it to bore holes in whoever he’s staring at, but he loves the moment too much. While the wounded aspect is left as mysterious to the viewer as it is to the film’s other characters, the opening with Guthrie goes just as far as any condescending flashback to a difficult childhood. If Dylan can’t have a full relationship with his idol, he has no incentive to provide one to anyone else. It’s a coherent picture of Dylan complemented by Chalamet’s own musical talent and his chemistry with Barbaro and Fanning, which is the minimal expectation for a biopic like this one.
Bob Dylan scholars surely have issues with A Complete Unknown, but for myself, who only knows the hits from the 60’s and has seen Inside Llewyn Davis, the film has the feeling of authenticity and perceptiveness. I’m viewing history more and more as a series of missed chances, so I’m open to a film that presents the 60’s as the doomed attempt to recapture the last missed chance from the 30’s through the medium of folk music, an attempt so laughable and insufficient that plugging in an electric guitar can be treated as a betrayal worthy of the ninth circle of Dante’s hell. A Complete Unknown wildly succeeds in making that anger knowable on all sides, and in depicting a musician for a greater purpose than the celebration of their music. A-
As painful and disempowering as Dylan’s encounter with Guthrie is, that’s not how Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) interprets it. For him, folk music was and remains a path to a better country with better citizens. While he doesn’t connect with Dylan’s manner, he does recognize his talent, and Seeger puts him in the right clubs with the right crowds. He strikes up a professional, and eventually romantic, relationship with fellow folk icon Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), though she quickly tires of his arrogance and aloofness. Non-musician Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning) takes Baez’s place in Dylan’s life, but their relationship is no calmer. As Dylan’s career takes off, he soon finds himself in hypocritical situations, playing in Manhattan penthouses for elites toe-tapping to songs of quiet revolution. He’s shown having less in common with crowd-pleasers like Baez and Seeger and more with iconoclasts like Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook), which leads Dylan to assemble a new band and try out a new sound, much to the consternation of Seeger and his pals who like folk music specifically because it never changes, though they always want to hear The Times They Are A-Changing.
By this point in his career, it’s safe to say that Chalamet isn’t going to be the kind of movie star with range. Instead, he’s getting better and better at playing variations on a theme, which for him, is heartbroken or wounded character fighting against their worst impulses. His characters can’t find their place, and both revel in and hate their outsider status. Some part of Chalamet’s Dylan would like to be kinder, but that part isn’t greater than the clear satisfaction he gets from his primary look, which is a superior disinterest that Chalamet uses like a laser. He often regrets using it to bore holes in whoever he’s staring at, but he loves the moment too much. While the wounded aspect is left as mysterious to the viewer as it is to the film’s other characters, the opening with Guthrie goes just as far as any condescending flashback to a difficult childhood. If Dylan can’t have a full relationship with his idol, he has no incentive to provide one to anyone else. It’s a coherent picture of Dylan complemented by Chalamet’s own musical talent and his chemistry with Barbaro and Fanning, which is the minimal expectation for a biopic like this one.
Bob Dylan scholars surely have issues with A Complete Unknown, but for myself, who only knows the hits from the 60’s and has seen Inside Llewyn Davis, the film has the feeling of authenticity and perceptiveness. I’m viewing history more and more as a series of missed chances, so I’m open to a film that presents the 60’s as the doomed attempt to recapture the last missed chance from the 30’s through the medium of folk music, an attempt so laughable and insufficient that plugging in an electric guitar can be treated as a betrayal worthy of the ninth circle of Dante’s hell. A Complete Unknown wildly succeeds in making that anger knowable on all sides, and in depicting a musician for a greater purpose than the celebration of their music. A-
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