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A Complete Unknown

A Complete Unknown

Are we really doing this? It’s 2024 and we’re seriously trotting out a feature-length movie in which one of our brightest young stars does a Bob Dylan impression for two-plus hours?

If this SNL skit that won't end wasn't sufficiently ill-conceived, formerly trustworthy director James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown further dooms itself with shot after embarrassing shot of onlookers gawking at Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) as if he’s the second coming.

True, the Greenwich Village folk scene of the early 1960s had been searching for someone to help its social mission break through and reach the masses, but one or two instances of Edward Norton's Pete Seeger and other listeners acting like they're witnessing the resurrection are plenty. More than a dozen is beyond overkill.

Uninterested in advancing from the cookie-cutter music biopic template of his nearly 20-year-old Walk the Line, Mangold returns to this poisoned well again and again, producing a series of performance and reaction shots that quickly grows stale yet holds true to his total indifference — bordering on disdain — for what motivates Dylan or anyone around him.

Instead, A Complete Unknown is mere folkie cosplay, a film where convincing mimicry is the goal and honest human drama isn't welcome.

Though Chalamet has certainly done his homework and studied his subject’s every tic, and adopting the Dylan voice is somewhat of a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation, the aped speech is so grating and cringingly put-on that the actor’s normal way of talking or even a slightly affected Midwestern accent would almost surely prove less awkward.

Sure, Todd Haynes’ experimental I’m Not There has Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, and Ben Whishaw giving fairly faithful Dylan impressions. But spacing them out with other compelling characters as well as three additional Dylan variations (that, with the exception of Heath Ledger’s actor character’s few scenes playing Bale’s Dylan avatar, don’t even sound like him) prevents these interpretations from drawing undo attention to themselves.

Viewers who bail after Chalamet's first lines of dialogue have my blessing, though they’ll miss out on an art form where accurate tribute is far less clunky.

As with Mangold's Johnny Cash film, the best and most impressive parts of A Complete Unknown are its cast’s musical abilities. Without faithful presentations of Dylan’s songs, this project would be a total failure and easily the year’s worst film. But while the tunes’ sustained power saves this biopic from a fate that it might still deserve, they can’t mask the horrible decisions occurring on both sides of their inclusions.

While the director and his co-writer Jay Cocks (Gangs of New York) likewise clearly conducted significant research on Dylan and the folk scene, they seem to have glommed on to primarily surface details. 

Consumed with winking at informed viewers with such easter eggs as Al Kooper (Charlie Tahan, Ozark) sneaking into the “Like a Rolling Stone” recording sessions or Seeger telling Dylan to be careful on his motorcycle, the filmmakers ignore character development and crank out flat portraits of Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro, Top Gun: Maverick), Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook, Logan), and early Dylan muse Suze Rotolo, whom they rename Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning).

Norton manages a few respectable moments, conveying Seeger’s heartache at seeing his folk Messiah gradually distance himself from a destiny the young man never wanted. And the larger conflict between Dylan and the folk establishment offers scattered glimpses into the artist's mind. But Mangold acts like his film’s title is gospel and refuses to investigate further, despite cinematic Dylan forebears that have already done the legwork for him.

Why go backwards and retread in such obvious, unimaginative ways when the potential (and foundation) for deeper, more creative investigation has been laid out over the past two decades by I’m Not There, Martin Scorsese's No Direction Home and Rolling Thunder Revue, and the definitive portrait of the Greenwich Village folk scene, the Coen Brothers’ Dylan-adjacent Inside Llewyn Davis?

Indeed, making an earnest, traditional Bob Dylan biopic in 2024 is as ridiculous as filming a shot-by-shot remake of The Godfather. Both concepts are pointless endeavors (beyond an easy nostalgic payday and conceited filmmakers simply proving that they can) and ones mired in tone-deaf, disgraceful imitations that should be left to the original sources and not replicated.

However, even A Complete Unknown’s redeeming elements are undermined by the filmmakers simplifying the act of creating music, suggesting no struggle occurs — if you're a genius, that is. This misleading ease is nearly as offensive as the “hey, I’ve got an idea!” buffoonery of Bohemian Rhapsody and makes the far more honest portrayal of artistic process in the imaginative Robbie Williams biopic Better Man increasingly valuable.

Accuracy, however, is not exactly high on Mangold’s and Cocks’ list of priorities. Committed as they are to historical recreation, they’re quick to deviate from the facts as it suits their hackneyed narrative.

Despite the film’s R rating, there’s not even a hint that drugs might have played a role in expanding Dylan’s mind. And the filmmakers’ anachronistic shoehorning of one of the most iconic moments in Dylan history into a climactic scene that already carries significant drama (and directly fed the future confrontation) merits flicking the screen off with both hands while booing for a good minute or two.

If you want to watch Bob Dylan for a couple of hours, watch Bob Dylan — not this half-assed substitute. No self-respecting Dylan fan should mistake A Complete Unknown for anything but a dumpster fire, though listening to the soundtrack every once in a while might not be so painful.

Grade: D. Rated R. Now playing at AMC River Hills 10, Carolina Cinemark, the Fine Arts Theatre, and Regal Biltmore Grande.

(Photo: Macall Polay)

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