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Kelaru & Fulton rating: ★★★★
Runtime: 2 hrs 21 mins
Full disclosure: I’m not a Bob Dylan fanatic or an expert on his life. I enjoy his popular songs – many of them are on my ‘All-Time Favs’ playlist – but I wouldn’t call myself fully versed in his story or his music.
I was drawn to A Complete Unknown by the legend of Dylan himself and, more importantly, by the talent behind the project – especially Timothée Chalamet. An actor’s true strength isn’t just in the variety of roles they take on but in how convincingly they embody each one.
Saying we’ve seen a lot of Chalamet this year isn’t entirely accurate. Not because he hasn’t been on screen constantly – he has, with two major films and the awards campaigns behind them – but because he’s the kind of actor who disappears into his roles. He moulds himself so completely into his characters that it doesn’t feel like Timothée Chalamet is on screen – it feels like we’re watching the character, first and foremost.
By contrast, take Angelina Jolie’s portrayal of Maria Callas in Maria this year. With Jolie, it’s clear we’re watching Angelina Jolie playing Maria Callas. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – many factors contribute to that perception – but both portrayals tackle equally famous figures with vastly different levels of transformation.
Just look at Chalamet’s range in the past few years. Beyond Paul Atreides and Bob Dylan, he’s embodied roles as varied as Willy Wonka in Wonka, a cannibal drifter in Bones and All, and the young Henry V in The King. After watching A Complete Unknown, I have yet to see a misstep in his performances. At just 29, he’s already a serious contender for the Best Actor Oscar. Watching his evolution on screen feels like witnessing a biopic of his own life unfolding in real time.
But A Complete Unknown isn’t just about one actor’s performance. While portraying a living legend – one who has been played before and is still around to judge the accuracy of the depiction – requires an exceptional lead, the film itself is helmed brilliantly by James Mangold, who previously brought Walk the Line to life. The cinematography and music are outstanding, transporting us to 1960s America with an almost documentary-like authenticity. The sets and lighting evoke the era’s gritty, dimly lit clubs, bars, and apartments where Dylan spent most of his time.
The film focuses on the first four defining years of Dylan’s career, from his arrival in New York in 1961 to his infamous Newport Folk Festival performance, where he ‘betrayed' his folk audience by going electric. This was the moment that defined him as an artist: a constantly evolving musician unafraid to defy expectations and reshape his sound.
But A Complete Unknown isn’t a traditional biopic. It doesn’t attempt to document Dylan’s entire life. Instead, it captures a uniquely talented young man finding his way at the start of his career – a period when personal growth and artistic ambition are deeply intertwined. For a non-expert like me, the film provided invaluable context for why Dylan’s music mattered so much at the time. This was the height of the Cold War, the civil rights movement was gaining momentum, and people lived under a constant sense of existential threat. Dylan’s songs spoke directly to those fears, forging a deep bond between him and his audience.
While the film doesn’t showcase every historic Dylan moment – his performance at the 1963 March on Washington before Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech or his legendary four-hour set at Toad’s Place in Connecticut – it does explore his relationships with the people who shaped his early years, including Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), Pete Seeger (Edward Norton), and Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook).
These moments are beautifully rendered, blending strong performances with well-timed musical interludes. The film doesn’t shy away from reimagining key events and taking some creative liberties, but that’s fine – we’re in good hands. Mangold knows exactly when to step back and let the actors drive the emotion, and when to push in to capture a moment’s raw intensity. One particularly striking shot features Dylan visiting a dying Woody Guthrie in the hospital, framed alongside Pete Seeger in the midground, capturing three generations of folk musicians in a single, powerful image.
And yet, for all its strengths, A Complete Unknown sometimes feels like it plays things too safe. In attempting to balance Dylan’s personal and professional journeys, both narratives end up feeling slightly underdeveloped. I wanted to see more of the challenges Dylan faced in his creative process – how he dealt with self-doubt before becoming the confident icon we know today. I also wanted a deeper look at how his artistic genius shaped and strained his relationships, particularly in a time when musicians were under immense social and political pressure.
This is one of the rare films where I wouldn’t have minded a three-hour runtime.
That said, this ‘safe' approach will likely work in the film’s favor. Younger audiences unfamiliar with Dylan’s music will discover him through this story, while longtime fans will appreciate the tribute to his early years.
A Complete Unknown may not be as radical as its subject, but it serves as a worthy introduction to a legend – and a showcase for one of the finest performances of the year.