Timothée Chalamet electrifies as Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown”
A Complete Unknown
⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (out of 4)
Starring Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Boyd Holbrook, Dan Fogler, Scoot McNairy and Norbert Leo Butz. Written by James Mangold and Jay Cocks. Directed by James Mangold. Now playing at theatres everywhere. 140 minutes. PG
Peter Howell
Movie Critic
Timothée Chalamet pulls off a tremendous high-wire act as Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown,” writer-director James Mangold’s electric new musical biopic that focuses on the artist’s 1961-65 breakthrough period in New York.
The actor risked scorn or ridicule for playing the elusive rock icon, the artist everyone thinks they know, and the one too often reduced to extreme caricatures. Dylan is typically depicted as being utterly undefinable (see Todd Haynes’s kaleidoscopic “I’m Not There”), or eminently mockable (see James Austin Johnson’s recent “Saturday Night Live” parody).
Chalamet defies the naysayers, jugglers and clowns who might seek to bring him down, conjuring the most convincing Dylan to hit the dramatic screen yet. His Dylan is a man impossible to ignore but hard to like. In Chalamet’s portrayal, we see the genius tunesmith but also the opportunist who uses people (especially women) to get what he wants.
Mangold co-wrote the screenplay with Jay Cocks, adapting it from Elijah Wald’s 2015 book “Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan and the Night that Split the Sixties.” Wald’s work essayed Dylan’s seismic 1965 shift from folk to rock music, a change many of his fans took as a betrayal.
Chalamet, who used the pandemic years to prepare for this performance, achieves something close to magic with the sound. Doing all his own singing and guitar- and harmonica-playing — the film’s other actors are also adept — he hits all the right notes, enhancing musical memories rather than trampling them.
The picture, with its slightly desaturated colours, looks true to the 1960s, with credit due to cinematographer Phedon Papamichael, production designer François Audouy and costume designer Arianne Phillips. Chalamet’s transformation into the legendary musician is conveyed mainly through sunglasses, a leather jacket and bird’s nest hair; a prosthetic nose also subtly assists.
The actor really scores, though, in channelling Dylan’s evasiveness, his ruthless self-interest and his contemptuous disdain for anything but his music.
FULL REVIEW: https://bit.ly/3PjEg1m
