This Bob Dylan biopic is a worthy follow-up to Mangold’s Stroll the Line, and sports activities an incredible Timothee Chalamet efficiency.
PLOT: 4 years within the lifetime of Bob Dylan (Timothee Chalamet), from his discovery by Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) by way of his eventual rise to fame as a people singer, by way of his controversial resolution to go electrical on the eve of the 1965 Newport People Pageant.
REVIEW: It’s laborious to precisely sum up simply how a lot of a profound impact Bob Dylan had on popular culture. One of many biggest songwriters of all time, for sixty years now, Dylan’s been sitting on the high of the pantheon of music greats, however oddly sufficient, exterior of Todd Haynes’s impressionistic ode to his legend – I’m Not There, and a sequence of documentaries by Martin Scorsese, nobody’s ever tried to inform his story as a standard biopic till now. Sporting an impeccably assembled solid, James Mangold’s made a superb companion piece to his personal Stroll the Line in that it’s one other beautiful display screen depiction of one of many giants of Twentieth-century music.
Whereas musical biopics are a style unto themselves at this level (brilliantly satirized in Stroll Laborious), Mangold’s motion pictures are distinct in how contained they’re. Stroll the Line tackled Johnny Money’s profession up till the seventies, whereas A Full Unknown’s focus is much more particular, tackling the primary 4 years of Dylan’s profession. It’s a clever selection, as Dylan’s life story is so wealthy that Mangold if he needs to, may make a complete slew of sequels, and given how excellent Timothee Chalamet is within the lead, I’d be recreation.
For years now, it’s been apparent that so far as the rising crop of latest stars goes, Chalamet is the actual deal. He makes for an ideal Dylan, with him channelling the person’s iconic look and voice with out ever coming off like he’s doing a caricature. By narrowing the main focus to Dylan’s early years, Chalamet by no means has to cope with cumbersome prosthetics to evoke an getting old star. As a substitute, it’s a portrait of Dylan’s rise to prominence as a younger man.
Mangold, who co-wrote the movie with Jay Cocks (Gangs of New York, Unusual Days, Silence), based mostly the movie on Elijah Wald’s well-regarded e book, “Dylan Goes Electric”, which was raved about by Dylan himself. The movie resists ever turning into pure hagiography, with it not shying away from the truth that Dylan, on the time, might be ruthless in his ambition and likewise callous with the individuals he cherished.
A lot of the movie revolves round his relationships with 4 key figures. The primary is Woody Guthrie, performed by Scoot McNairy (in an almost silent efficiency) as the folks singer suffered from Huntington’s illness and was practically forgotten as he wasted away in a sanitarium. Subsequent is Edward Norton’s Pete Seeger, one other people nice who, whereas supportive of Dylan, additionally realizes that his devotion to people and its beliefs doesn’t enchantment to his protege because the latter’s fame begins to develop.
Then there’s Dylan’s two amorous affairs. He initially falls for Elle Fanning’s Sylvie, perpetually immortalized on the duvet of “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan,” solely to have his head turned by Monica Barbaro’s Joan Baez. Like Chalamet, she does her personal singing and has numerous show-stopping numbers that can hopefully ship youthful viewers of the film to Spotify, the place they’ll uncover extra of Baez’s work.
Definitely, the movie’s coronary heart revolves across the conflict between Dylan and Seeger, with Norton heartbreaking because the kindly people singer who’s maybe too idealistic to grasp Dylan’s must be his personal man. Everyone seems to be terrific, together with Boyd Holbrook, who performs Johnny Money (taking on from Joaquin Phoenix), as he performs a supporting half in Dylan’s rise to fame as considered one of his most trusted contemporaries.
Via all of it, Mangold’s movie, which is shortly paced, is completely entertaining and actually provides you an appreciation for Dylan’s craft and significance, with the movie filled with impressively mounted performances of his most important songs. A Full Unknown ought to do what Stroll the Line did: it would expose Dylan’s music to a youthful viewers, because the movie performs nicely to Dylan aficionados, extra informal followers (reminiscent of myself) and even those that’ve by no means heard of him. It’s one of many 12 months’s most entertaining motion pictures, with Mangold’s movie so good that I hope he’s received just a few Dylan sequels in him, because it really left me wanting extra.
