Electric, Again | 'A Complete Unknown' Review

Check any newspaper or magazine this weekend: behold the hand wringing and begrudging. 

In some manner, the writer will ask if the world needed another Bob Dylan movie. (I can’t tell if they’re joking.) Critics ultimately admit that A Complete Unknown, James Mangold's latest addition to the Dylan canon starring Timothée Chalamet, is captivating and tells its own compelling story. That it manages these surprises them all or forces them to admit something they did not wish. 

It does a lot damn more than those things. 

Mangold, along with co-writer Jay Cocks, walks a tightrope with every move in A Complete Unknown. He’s had his practice. Most audiences either know him from the 2005 Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line or his version of the Wolverine tale with 2017’s Logan; his look at crime ingrained in those who keep the law in 1997’s Cop Land is the very definition of underrated movies. 

One misstep here and A Complete Unknown falls to pieces. Yet Mangold gives a refreshing reminder of why “Dylan goes electric!” still means something of vitality and import nearly sixty years after the lightning bolt moment at Newport Folk Festival. That context, no matter how much viewers know or think they understand, works wonders in the movie and leaves you breathless. 

Casting Timothée Chalamet does much of the heavy lifting to begin. It is in the first seconds of the film, Chalamet’s gaze into the bustling metropolis of a yet-to-behold New York City speaks volumes on which Dylan is stepping out of the car. Make no doubt: there are multiple Bob Dylans. Chalamet embodies Dylan so convincingly that viewers may momentarily forget that he’s actually not Bob Dylan. Chalamet put in the work: he plays guitar, convincingly, as well as piano and sings. While he never perfects the early Dylan nasality, everything else, from his posture, hair, clothes, and even his cigarette smoking are all pure Dylan. He captures it all never venturing into caricature. In five minutes, he gives all any viewer needs to know about the upstart in 1961, though he will change in three, short years.

Mangold directs a stellar cast here, all mesmerizing in their own roles. Edward Norton comes aboard as early friend and a wonderful interpretation of Pete Seeger; Monica Barbaro scene steals and sings rapturously as Joan Baez, one-time Dylan love interest; Elle Fanning faces down Dylan as the real-life activist and one-time Dylan girlfriend Suze Rotolo, fictionalized here as Sylvie Russo. Even manager Albert Grossman and Johnny Cash get in the mix, played by Dan Fogler and Boyd Holbrook, respectively. And Scoot McNairy features as a near-speechless and ailing Woody Guthrie. None are wasted here. 

A Complete Unknown is layered with moments and scenes so well done it becomes impossible to boil the film down to a single element of perfection, though a lot can be said about the notion that Mangold understands Dylan going electric, it being a fight of the personal versus political. As Dylan navigates conflicts where all sides are equally bullheaded and justified, it is a question, at times: who truly wins, and does it even matter? That depends and maybe even doesn’t matter. Here, one can argue that it is Dylan, but not without breaking some hearts, perceived rules, and preconceived ideas. 

Art often transforms into the political versus the personal. Yet one without the other doesn’t exist. When Bob Dylan sees that it is remotely possible that he is held down, it’s when he breaks free the most. To hell with everyone else. Despite not understanding what comes before, this Dylan gets that much and makes it a point not to be a spokesman for anyone else. 

In a 2004 interview with 60 Minutes, the real Bob Dylan still faced the label of being a messiah for a generation, ultimately shrugging off all designations. If anyone thought of him as a political force, he stated, it's because they “must not have heard the songs.” Mangold must’ve. He paints Bob Dylan as accurately as anyone can by avoiding the trappings of forcing Dylan into an Edgar Allan Poe story, and therefore making Dylan something that he’s not.     

Fans will know the story. Who gives a shit. It’s the joy of seeing it on screen, hearing it again through new ears, seeing it all through first-time eyes, and done in the daunting fashion of a carnival high wire act – one balancing without a care of any net below. Why, that is Dylan at his core at any stage. 

It’s also what James Mangold, Timothée Chalamet, Monica Barbao, and Elle Fanning do here. 

Dylan goes electric, indeed. 

Blaine Duncan
Author
Blaine Duncan
Editor-In-Chief, Host of Taking It Down