Film Review: A Complete Unknown – Bob Dylan biopic hits right notes

Timothee Chalamet transforms into a folk music icon in A Complete Unknown, playing Bob Dylan in a performance that could guide him all the way to the Oscars.

Film Review: A Complete Unknown – Bob Dylan biopic hits right notes

Over the Christmas period, I watched two music biopics. The first was Bob Dylan story A Complete Unknown, starring Timothee Chalamet, which hits UK cinemas this week. The other was Better Man – a film in which Robbie Williams was portrayed by a CGI chimpanzee. Better Man was fine. The primate-shaped elephant in the room is never addressed in the story and, for the most part, it all unfolds like a very standard music biopic. 

This left me wondering exactly what it is that people want from this genre – a somewhat maligned, albeit popular, corner of cinema.

There’s no doubt that music biopics are big business. Bohemian Rhapsody made more than $900m at the box office in 2018 and went on to win four Oscars. In the years since, we’ve had biopics of artists including Elton John, Elvis Presley, Amy Winehouse, Whitney Houston, Bob Marley, and Aretha Franklin to name just a few. Some of those movies have been hits, but almost all of them have been dogged by a simple question: why are we doing this?

More than any other type of biographical film, musician stories have become a critical lightning rod. People have close, intense relationships with these famous folks – many of whom are either still alive or only very recently left us. The exact elements that make their stories fascinating – relationship drama, battles with addiction, the cyclone of fame – also mean their stories have to be told with the utmost sensitivity. But that also means the movies can sometimes unfold like more of a Wikipedia page than a compelling big screen narrative.

All of this brings me back to A Complete Unknown. On the face of it, it’s the most generic of biopics, following Chalamet’s take on Dylan from his early days as a starry-eyed folk fan arriving in New York City to the very top of the music biz. The film ends with Dylan’s controversial performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, when he used electric instruments at the traditionally acoustic event.

A Complete Unknown works as well as it does because it understands that a music biopic shouldn’t be about events and moments. It should be about the person behind the mythology and fame. Director James Mangold certainly knows this, having previously helmed the Johnny Cash story in 2005’s Walk the Line

Through the medium of Chalamet’s mercurial, rakish performance, the light and shade of Dylan comes through very clearly. He’s a genius, but he’s also a bit of a pretentious piece of work. Where the Dylan of the early scenes is timid and afraid to take up space, Chalamet allows himself to grow in stature as the film goes on – the Dylan of the third act seems to stand so tall he’s almost reclining.

This version of Dylan knows he’s brilliant, which leads him to butt heads with the more genteel figures of the folk scene. Edward Norton is terrific as Pete Seeger, who serves as a mentor for Dylan in his early days. As Dylan pushes further into stardom and away from his folk roots, Norton’s barely restrained fury – hidden behind his soft, friendly voice and smiling demeanour – always seems to be bristling beneath the surface of Norton’s performance.

This prickly side of Dylan also comes through in his relationships with the two most important women in his life – on-off girlfriend Sylvie (Elle Fanning) and fellow folk star Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro). Smartly, Mangold and co-writer Jay Cocks allow both women to essentially discard Dylan as his ego grows, while Barbaro gets some standout musical sequences with and without her duet partner.

Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez and Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan in A Complete UnknownMonica Barbaro as Joan Baez and Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown
(Credit: Searchlight Pictures)

The music, across the board, is a real strength of the film. Live singing on set doesn’t always work – just look at Russell Crowe’s disastrous work in Les Miserables – but there’s something about Chalamet’s earthy take on Dylan’s distinctive voice that feels authentically imperfect with the spontaneity of the live recording. Chalamet deserves immense credit for taking on such a memorable voice, along with the pressure of playing guitar and harmonica live as well.

Overall, A Complete Unknown emerges as a pretty excellent music biopic. It proves that there’s no need to reinvent the wheel and transform a cast member randomly into a photorealistic animal simply to make the genre work in the modern era. We have to ask ourselves what we actually want from the music genre because, for me, this sort of mature, knotty portrait of a complex icon is exactly what the biopic is all about.

A Complete Unknown is in UK cinemas from 17th January. For more on the music icon himself, read our review of Bob Dylan live in Nottingham.

Header Image Credit: Searchlight Pictures

Author

Tom Beasley

Tom Beasley Editor

Tom is the editor of Voice and a freelance entertainment journalist. He has been a film critic and showbiz reporter for more than seven years and is dedicated to helping young people enter the world of entertainment journalism. He loves horror movies, musicals, and pro wrestling — but not normally at the same time.

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1 Comments

  • Diana Walton

    On 27 January 2025, 09:22 Diana Walton Voice Team commented:

    What a great film and bravura performance from Timothy Chalamet - he really captured that edgy insecure self-confidence of the early Dylan & you're right that he grows through the film to the thrilling electric set at the end, hitting Dylan's next brilliant musical phase. I also loved the rough, messy New York of the 60s, with music on every street corner and in every dive. I felt the film actually celebrated the 'music of the people' and showed how everybody owns it (including but not only the purist folkies) from a busker to a Bob Dylan!

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