Chalamet goes electric with ‘A Complete Unknown’
Early in James Mangold’s “A Complete Unknown,” a still wet-behind-the-ears Bob Dylan is about to make his debut at Gerde’s Folk City in Greenwich Village. Sitting behind the mic, he spots the more established Joan Baez drifting through the crowd following her just-completed set. It’s clear he’s instantly smitten and commences flirting from the stage, albeit with a hint of condescension. “How ’bout that Joan Baez, folks?” he says with those soulful eyes firmly fixed on the woman for whom he’ll soon fall hard. “She’s pretty good. And she’s pretty. Maybe a little too pretty.”
That dubious compliment is a fitting encapsulation of “A Complete Unknown” and Timothée Chalamet’s portrayal of music’s poet laureate during his New York City years from 1961 to 1965. It’s all “a little too pretty.” And that’s not necessarily a bad thing in this case. In fact, Chalamet’s precise mimicry satisfyingly sands down Dylan’s signature gravelly baritone. And although those dreamy Chalamet looks make for a more aesthetically pleasing Dylan, the actor’s spot-on mannerisms and facial expressions minimize the distraction.
While I’d prefer a rougher Dylan and a messier movie than “A Complete Unknown,” the Hollywoodized rendering Mangold offers is highly seductive, as is Chalamet in a performance I’m betting snags him his first Oscar. He’s that good, far exceeding my expectations. While Mangold takes poetic license to the extreme, I feel much the same about the movie in which Chalamet reigns.
For me, “A Complete Unknown” is a vast improvement over Mangold’s previous music biopic, the overrated “Walk the Line,” which incidentally, won Joaquin Phoenix a coveted gold statuette. I wasn’t a fan of Phoenix’s subpar Johnny Cash impersonation, nor am I down with Boyd Holbrook as the Man in Black in this enterprise. He’s more Chris Isaak than Cash. But Chalamet? He’s amazing in a career-best depiction that transcends semblance and approaches embodiment, from the tousled hair to the surly temperament to the God-like aura surrounding the Pied Piper of folk rock.
Suze Rotolo spotted Dylan’s exceptionality long before her future lover saw the inside of a recording studio. She took him in and provided shelter from the storm during those early days in Greenwich Village. Though separated by destiny, it’s clear she still holds a special place in Dylan’s heart, as evidenced by Bob specifically requesting that Mangold change Suze’s name to Sylvie Russo.
The director complies and a magnificent Elle Fanning effortlessly goes about doing Suze proud by emerging as the movie’s heart and soul. I won’t forget the camera closing in on Fanning’s porcelain-like face crumpling into tears as Suze/Sylvie watches her man take the stage on the cusp of superstardom at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival. It’s the exact moment she realizes he no longer belongs solely to her, he belongs to the world.
It will hardly be the last time we encounter Sylvie, as she unknowingly comes to symbolize home to the singer in those vagabond years. Their relationship is in and out for months, but you ask yourself if Dylan would have ever made it without her? Of course, he wouldn’t. Her social activism and unwavering support directly inspired his signature protest songs and his wrenching chronicles of love and loss. Fanning doesn’t have a lot of scenes, but she makes it abundantly clear why Dylan kept finding his way back to his early muse.
Suze/Sylvie is hardly the only woman who tried and failed to crack the enigma that is Bob Dylan, Baez among them. She’s played by “Top Gun: Maverick” breakout Monica Barbaro and she’s smashing. As with Chalamet, she’s more beautiful than her real-life counterpart. But her singing, as well as her chemistry with Chalamet, is pitch perfect, even when Dylan and Baez are at each other’s throats, which is often. You feel the heat, a passion so strong it inspired Baez to write the bittersweet “Diamonds and Rust” about her turbulent personal and professional relationship with the tetchy troubadour. “You who are so good with words and at keeping things vague,” she sang.
That line perfectly sums up Dylan as well as Chalamet in his depiction. The man, whether by design or not, is unknowable. Mangold realizes it, too. He and co-writer Jay Cocks, a longtime Dylan confidant, don’t even attempt to unwrap the mystery. That’s the film’s one liability. Normally that would irk me, but here it doesn’t seem to matter. That’s largely because Chalamet provides unspoken insight into the mind and motivations of a man who did not suffer fools gladly and ironically demanded authenticity, having blatantly concocted his life pre-1961. If anyone dared ask, he’d answer – convincingly – with an anecdote about running away from home and spending years as a laborer in a traveling carnival.
That absence of honesty drove his friends and lovers crazy, none more so than fellow folkie Pete Seeger. Played brilliantly by Edward Norton in all the splendor of a musician so folksy he was Mr. Rogers before the master of kid’s programming even arrived on the national scene. Seeger’s role in Dylan’s career is greatly exaggerated in “A Complete Unknown.” Still, he serves nicely as an effigy of the many friends and associates Dylan was accused of betraying during the infancy of his career.
Chalamet, to his credit, is unafraid to reveal how nasty and heartless Dylan can be when provoked, usually by folks wanting to mold and shape him into what they want him to be. That friction, of course, culminated in the infamous performance at Newport in 1965 “when Dylan went electric.” Aptly, it’s the climax Mangold builds toward in telling the semi-true story of an artist who steadfastly refused to compromise. I gotta tell you, it’s pretty damn rousing. It’s also a sad reminder of how lacking that level of integrity is today.
For Dylan, then and now, it’s always been about the music and the thirst to create and entertain. He never bargained for the overwhelming fame that accompanied it. Shy, reserved and always faithful to his Midwestern values emphasizing humility and hard work, his measure of success – like that of his Huntington-stricken hero, Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) – wasn’t record sales, concert grosses, or popularity. It was as simple as Bob being Bob and allowing the mythmakers to assign to him whatever label they saw fit. That’s the message “A Complete Unknown” fondly conveys as it prints the legend and is content to leave the truth where it belongs – blowin’ in the wind.
Movie review
A Complete Unknown
Rated: R for language
Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Boyd Holbrook, Scoot McNairy and Dan Fogler
Director: James Mangold
Writers: James Mangold and Jay Cocks
Runtime: 141 minutes
Where: In theaters Dec. 25
Grade: A-
