A Complete Unknown Review: Timothée Chalamet Doesn’t Solve Bob Dylan’s Mystery

Midway through James Mangold’s often hushed and occasionally deafening A Complete Unknown, Bob Dylan comes as close as he ever will to lowering his defenses. Which is not to say the man who defined a generation’s counterculture verbalizes much in the way of his wants or dreams. Rather, in that classic Hollywood biopic style, he cries out his essence with a pained lamentation.

“When people ask me where the songs come from, they don’t want to know,” Timothée Chalamet’s elfin folk singer broods. “They only want to know why they didn’t come to them!”

That may be, but the essence of a movie as conventional and down the middle as A Complete Unknown is to want, even crave, an answer to the riddle. More or less a greatest hits playlist on Spotify made flesh, this isn’t a movie interested with staying in the shadows of a talent so ephemeral that it vanishes like smoke into the night. If you want that film, Todd Haynes made it; it’s called I’m Not There. Check it out.

A Complete Unknown, on the other hand, is the folksy companion piece to Mangold’s previous, and fairly definitive, rendering of the mainstream musical biopic. Like Walk the Line, this is an extended, handsomely staged, two-hour montage of beloved songs and the behind-the-scenes anecdotes and gossips which diehards know by heart. This new one even has Johnny Cash appear in a handful of scenes and sing “Folsom Prison.” It almost makes you wonder if Mangold considered going the full comic book movie crossover route by asking Joaquin Phoenix to get back in the black, but perhaps the actor’s aged out?

Whatever the case, A Complete Unknown is a straightforward narrative about a musical god which struggles so mightily to explain his divinity that it ultimately decides to put Dylan’s amorphous nature right there in the title. Even so, the movie cannot fill that void no matter how many glorious songs are sung fairly well by Chalamet, often with a spotlight offstage creating a halo around his head. Nor can it find much of a central theme other than, as Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) surmises, “You know, you’re kind of an asshole, Bob.” Yeah, we can see that. But does this movie have something else to add about the man and the music that we cannot get from an iPod?

It seems unlikely after the first scene where Mangold telegraphs the hagiographic reverence with which he’s painting. In a small, dreary hospital off the beaten path, poor Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) suffers from Huntington’s disease, a neurological disorder that has robbed him of his speech. Longtime friend and fellow folk star Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) tries to cheer his pal, but it is a young stranger who comes in from the storm—as if he manifested out of thin air—that gives voice and comfort to the already established legends. The young fella is, of course, Bob Dylan (Chalamet), who appears graced with the ability to conjure on the spot playful lyrics like his tribute to Woody, or all-time classics like “Blowing in the Wind,” which he has half-finished the next morning during breakfast with the Seeger family.

This more or less sets the tone and tenor of the rest of the picture: character actors and other famous thespians play icons or deep cut favorites from the 1960s folk music scene, recreate a famous story about Dylan’s rise, and then perform it with maximum, worshipful awe. This can range from Dylan’s surprisingly protective manager Albert Grossman (Dan Folger) to frequent Mangold stalwart Boyd Holbrook taking a solid swing at Johnny Cash’s deep gravel. There’s also the great loves of Dylan’s… well, week or month, if not life. This includes Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning), his first girlfriend in Greenwich Village, and fellow rising folk star Joan Baez. Through it all, what is communicated time and again is the instantly recognized brilliance of Dylan’s talent, as well as a kind of joyless solemnity one usually associates with 1950s biblical epics about Christ.

Standing at the center of it all is Chalamet’s turn as Dylan. This is also one of the film’s bigger issue. Admittedly, casting the 28-year-old actor seems like a no-brainer. In addition to being one of the biggest movie stars on the planet today, Chalamet has a passing resemblance to Dylan, as well as convincing singing talent. In fact, despite Dylan quipping onscreen about Joanie crooning “The House of the Rising Sun” a little too pretty, Chalamet’s own voice is a lot cleaner and better enunciated than the real Dylan’s. This isn’t a problem though. He sings ‘em well, just as he plays a mean harmonica on-camera. The rest of his performance is what leaves something to be desired.

A great talent who gave a nomination-worthy turn earlier this year in Dune: Part Two, Chalamet seems strangely uncertain in a role with as much baggage as Dylan. The performer has often proved adept at finding the natural humanity of characters attempting to hide such vulnerabilities, as seen with Elio in Call Me By Your Name. But with Dylan, we never truly get behind those sunglasses. Chalamet mimics the speaking pattern and matches the walk, not to mention the too-cool-for-school wardrobe. But rarely does a choice not feel deliberate or self-conscious. In straining to affect Dylan’s style, Chalamet comes across mannered while playing a guy who was effortless. Strangely, his Dune father might’ve gotten closer even if he only portrayed a Dylan wannabe in Inside Llewlyn Davis.

If there is a standout performance in A Complete Unknown, it’s Barbaro as Baez. One of the many bright spots in Top Gun: Maverick, Barbaro channels the blockbuster-friendly charisma she utilized there into a sedate and fully defined character here. This Joan Baez is practical and aware of the realities of this industry in a way an iconoclast (and man) like Dylan never bothers to be. Her depiction of a dueting partner makes for a far more interesting (and eventually exacerbated) business associate to Dylan than she does a mere love interest. Unfortunately, the movie’s script by Mangold and Jay Cocks never seems quite sure of how to use her beyond recreating a famed performance of “It Ain’t Me Babe,” anymore than it gives Fanning much to do outside of playing the same thankless role of “the first love interest” Ginnifer Goodwin essayed almost 20 years ago.

If this all seems harsh, know that there is plenty to admire in the pure filmmaking craft and passion of A Complete Unknown. Ever since the one-two punch of Ray and Walk the Line in the early 2000s, the formula Mangold helped set down has never left multiplexes or awards season ballots for long. And unlike most of Mangold’s imitators, who might have dropped leaden love letters for Freddie Mercury or Bob Marley, to name but a few, it’s safe to say that Mangold seems to honestly believe in the mythmaking. He does it better than just about anybody this side of Dewey Cox, but his old-fashioned instincts, which veer toward classic Hollywood storytelling and formula, are antithetical to a cat as contrarian as Dylan.

The sequence where the movie comes alive is also the climactic one from which A Complete Unknown pulls most fervently from the historical record (Elijah Wald’s Dylan Goes Electric! is the only cited source material). The last 20 or so minutes of the movie revolve around the fateful weekend at the Newport Folk Festival where Dylan stood in front of a sea of red, screaming faces and dared to play an electric guitar like he was some kind of Beatle. They practically murdered him.

That weekend alone could have been a film: 90 minutes about the hours and/or days leading up to Dylan proving he’s the ultimate rebel. A Complete Unknown plants some seedlings that gesture toward this idea, but never gives them enough water or light. In the end, this is just another gospel about how cool its chosen messiah is. Alas, preaching to the choir has never been Dylan’s bag.

A Complete Unknown opens in theaters on Dec. 25. Learn more about Den of Geek’s review process and why you can trust our recommendations here.