A Complete Unknown

A film this big and gorgeous should be experienced in the big screen, and I'm glad that I did. What an absorbing experience it was. I cried multiple times, and all of the emotion that is soaring in every scene was handled beautifully by James Mangold; he really was the perfect guy for the job.

How meaningful all of the dialogues were, how genuine the production design was, and how talented all of the actors are in this celebratory film.

I applaud how it decided to question the relationship between artists and their audiences, what it means to be an artist with integrity who wishes to pursue their own interests, and when they should compromise (which goes for audiences as well).

Oh, and my heart melted for Sylvie. I really felt all of her contradictory emotions of admiration, jealousy, and pain.

James Mangold isn’t the kind of filmmaker who takes a music icon and turns their story into a predictable parade of greatest hits wrapped in a neatly packaged narrative. In “A Complete Unknown”, he sidesteps the usual biopic traps and zooms in on a specific turning point in Bob Dylan’s life—the exact moment when a promising young artist transforms into an unstoppable cultural force. The film understands that Dylan isn’t someone who can be fully explained or boxed into a conventional character arc, so it does something far more interesting: it watches his metamorphosis unfold without ever trying to decode it. The result is a film that pulses with the raw energy of creativity and the inevitable clash between tradition and reinvention.

The starting point is spot-on: a young Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) arriving at a hospital to visit one of his biggest idols, Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy). This scene could have easily been an unnecessary tribute, but Mangold uses it to establish one of the film’s central threads—the tension between folk’s old and new generations. In that same hospital, Dylan meets Pete Seeger (Edward Norton), who immediately senses that this skinny kid from Minnesota has something special. But this isn’t framed as a peaceful passing of the torch—it’s a collision of forces, a push and pull between respect for tradition and the need to break away from it. That friction runs through every scene, making “A Complete Unknown” far more dynamic than the average music biopic, which often settles for simply glorifying the protagonist’s talent without really digging into the conflicts that drive them.

Mangold gets one key thing right: Dylan can’t be understood without his music, so he does what most films in this genre shy away from—he puts the songs at the heart of the narrative. Instead of rushing through snippets of greatest hits, we get full performances that show Dylan in a state of creative combustion. When he sings in a club while the news blares about the Cuban Missile Crisis, it’s not just a protest song—it’s art fusing with history in real time, making it clear why his words carried an almost prophetic weight at the time. This approach gives the film a sense of urgency that’s rare in biopics, avoiding that museum-like feeling of just checking off milestone moments.

Timothée Chalamet plays Dylan as electric, restless—someone constantly slipping away from any attempt at definition. His performance goes beyond mere imitation—he doesn’t reduce Dylan to a collection of exaggerated mannerisms but instead captures the essence of an artist who refuses to be pinned down, even by his own audience. He especially shines in the musical sequences, channeling the raw energy of those songs as they were heard for the first time. Mangold films these scenes with the excitement of someone witnessing history, but without losing the spontaneity of an artist experimenting in front of a crowd. It’s the kind of moment that could’ve felt overblown if treated as a grand, self-important set piece, but here, it unfolds with the natural flow of someone discovering their own voice in real time.

Mangold and Jay Cocks’ screenplay has another major strength: it never spoon-feeds the audience. It trusts viewers to pick up on the story’s nuances without relying on clunky exposition or forced flashbacks. Dylan’s relationship with Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) is a great example. There are no big confrontations or melodramatic speeches, yet their dynamic is crystal clear through small gestures, glances, and Baez’s quiet frustration as she realizes Dylan is already moving on while she’s still trying to figure out where they are. The same goes for his relationship with Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning), a fictionalized version of Suze Rotolo. The pain of being with someone who’s in constant motion is never spelled out in obvious dialogue—it just lingers in the spaces between their words.

And then we get to the film’s most explosive moment: the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Dylan’s decision to ditch acoustic folk for electric rock is portrayed here as both an act of defiance and an inevitability. Mangold films this scene with the tension of a showdown, turning the audience into an active character, reacting with shock, anger, and disbelief. The booing nearly drowns out the sound of the guitar, but Dylan pushes forward, just as he always has. It’s not just a turning point in his career—it’s the perfect encapsulation of what the film is trying to say. Dylan was never interested in being what people wanted him to be. He always went where his instincts led him, even if it meant betraying the expectations of those who worshipped him.

By the time “A Complete Unknown” ends, we don’t walk away with a definitive portrait of Bob Dylan—and that’s exactly the point. Instead of squeezing him into a conventional rise-fall-redemption narrative, Mangold embraces the fact that Dylan has always been a moving target. The film leans into that elusiveness, and in doing so, becomes something much greater than a biopic—it’s a snapshot of an artist at the precise moment when the world starts spinning around him. Like Dylan himself, the film doesn’t ask for permission to be what it is. It just keeps moving forward, leaving a trail of dust behind, never looking back.

I guess you must have to be my age to get it. The time of it all happening is really to me what it was all about the turbulence in the music scene was changing fast back in those days. I didn't want it to end. Great job by the young actor, to me oscar worthy performance.

Amazing. Timothée Chalamet not only made Bob Dylan look better, but he also made him sound better. I might have given this movie a 10 if I had actually learned something about Bob Dylan.

“BOB, YOU BLEW MY MIND!”
-Johnny Cash, after seeing Bob, black glasses rockstar edition on stage strumming a thick and long sexy strat. Watched the scene like twelve times, because Johnny is just OUTTA his own mind, while still being totally able to be functional at his music, even though like himself, Bob was also deeply depressed in his own way and both are heavily engaged in drug abuse, to the point that it is noticable the efforts of the actors to bring this out.

I was shocked at how much I enjoyed this movie. After all, it is tough not to watch a movie like this and not walk away with the impression that the lead actor was doing a cartoonish impersonation of the subject matter (I am looking at you, Bradley Cooper). The movie just worked, largely because the music was so engaging and so fantastically delivered. I don't know how Chalamet didn't get the nod for best actor - he disappeared into this role. Similarly, as of this writing, this is my best movie of 2024.

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p.s. If you are complaining that you didn't learn anything about Dylan, see the title of the movie. The man is unknowable, which is absolutely fine.

Bob Dylan's early career is full of remarkable facts, interesting moments and controversies, and this movie portrays it all in a balanced way. It explores his relationships, influences and, above all, his music. It is one of the most musical biographical films ever made, with an exceptional performance by Timothée Chalamet. His interpretation of the songs is faithful and enriches the context, highlighting the lyrics and the events, creating a solid, quirky and captivating film.

Timothée did phenomenal. Possibly his best performance yet - although Beautiful Boy is hard to beat, so don't quote me on that.

Fantastic movie Chamalet was outstanding

'A Complete Unknown' is a biopic worth watching. I only know of Bob Dylan by name and possibly some vague recognition of a few of his songs, as is usual for me it seems; uncultured swine. Therefore, I was only coming into this to see how it came out as a film - it's very good!

Timothée Chalamet's portrayal is impressive for the large majority, I will say his schtick comes across as a little forced in one or two parts (only one or two) and I also had difficulty totally understanding him in a few moments (only a few). Edward Norton is good too, I thought he'd feature more; if only because I saw him on the promo trail with Chalamet a lot.

Elle Fanning and Monica Barbaro offer noteworthy performances, everyone on the cast is perfectly fine to be fair. The music seems well done to me, again I'm not someone who definitively knows Dylan's work but it felt well shown. It's possibly too prevalent, which is a weird thing to say about a musician biopic but there's a lot of music in this.

The end at the festival is the scene that I'll remember most from this, the sound design is particularly excellent; was practically bouncing in my seat due to the noise. If I was to mention any negatives, or at least things that aren't proper positives, it would be the pacing and run time. Not that I'd explicitly class those as bad parts of this though.