On the heels of a large Timothée Chalamet look-alike contest in New York Metropolis, an occasion so common that even the actor confirmed up, audiences are tasked with what’s now the unimaginable: believing that he’s a nearly obscure artist with a fancy relationship with fame.
That’s what writer-director James Mangold’s new movie “A Complete Unknown” banks on. In it, Chalamet portrays a 20-something-year-old Bob Dylan starting within the early Sixties, a time when the musician was performing small, folky gigs at pubs in The Huge Apple concurrently along with his guitar and harmonica — only a few quick years earlier than he grew to become a legend.
It kind of is smart that Chalamet would play this position. Regardless of being solely 28 years outdated, he hasn’t gone 12 months within the final decade with out starring in a film, reaching a number of Oscar nominations and clearly constructing a rabid, largely Gen Z fanbase within the course of. However he hasn’t really received an Oscar. And save for one or two movies akin to 2018’s “Beautiful Boy,” he hasn’t a lot portrayed real-life individuals, which has traditionally been like catnip for award voters.
With “A Complete Unknown,” he does a couple of issues the Academy simply loves — painting an precise individual, cater to an older viewers that extra carefully resembles the voters and have interaction with the (notably white) Dylan obsessives. Whether or not awards inspire the actor or not, it’s acutely clear from the media frenzy round this film (extra on that in a bit) that that’s what the studio is enthusiastic about and what a lot of the press round it assist validate.
That appears to be working to this point by the appears to be like of the a number of nominations from committees together with the Golden Globes. However that isn’t at all times indicator of the standard of the efficiency. Within the case of “A Complete Unknown,” Chalamet has gotten so well-known at this level in his profession that that overshadows any potential he might need in it.
It’s tough to even take note of his efficiency as a result of at virtually each flip it appears to be like like Chalamet as Dylan; not simply … Dylan, correctly. From the schlocky, boyishly matted wig he dons, solely vaguely much like the real-life Dylan’s hair then, and even now to his awkward appeal, a lot concerning the efficiency seems like an act. The identical goes for the numerous scenes (a lot of the film, actually) of Chalamet performing Dylan’s music acoustically.
A lot has been made concerning the actor studying to sing and play the guitar for the position, so that really comes off plausible within the film. And it deserves some credit score for that, for positive. It speaks to his dedication to the position and his strategy to authenticating it.
Courtesy of Searchlight Photos
Nonetheless, a bigger difficulty hinges upon the truth that Chalamet’s efficiency feels means too modern for the period. Certain, the costuming and hair could usually match for the interval. Nevertheless it by no means fails to feel and look like a Gen Z celeb sporting a masks — and one that’s so paper skinny that you may see proper by it.
That brings up a tough query that the movie, its performances (Elle Fanning as one among Dylan’s sweethearts suffers from the identical points as her co-star’s) and its publicity raises. Is the film, which Mangold and co-writer Jay Cocks tailored from Elijah Wald’s e-book “Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan and the Night that Split the Sixties,” good or is it only a method to promote a now 83-year-old Dylan to a youthful viewers that is likely to be unfamiliar along with his work?
To listen to the resounding reward and publicity narrative inform it, Chalamet’s efficiency is “transformative.” As well, a extensively circulated social media publish from the real-life Dylan seems like a further try to affirm his work within the movie:
“There’s a movie about me opening soon called ‘A Complete Unknown’ (what a title!),” the musician posted on X. “Timothée Chalamet is starring in the lead role. Timmy’s a brilliant actor, so I’m sure he’s going to be completely believable as me. Or a younger me. Or some other me….It’s a fantastic retelling of events from the early ’60s that led up to the fiasco at Newport. After you’ve seen the movie, read the book.”
For no matter it’s price, two issues are true there. The film is known as “A Complete Unknown” and Chalamet is a terrific actor, in different movies, however you in all probability wouldn’t have the ability to inform by “A Complete Unknown.” The movie does him no favors.
Its lead efficiency is only one of its many points, although.
The drama traces Dylan’s path to the aforementioned Newport Folks Pageant in 1965, the place he triggered an uproar among the many viewers and his group, together with musician and competition board member Peter Seeger (Edward Norton), as a result of he determined to carry out electrical. That controversy clearly meant one thing on the time and positively to Dylan devotees nonetheless, however within the movie it comes off melodramatic, chaotic and empty.
That’s as a result of, like its title alludes, the practically 2 1/2 hours of “A Complete Unknown” is way extra within the legend of Dylan than inspecting the precise individual — and even the musician. How will you painting an clearly monumental controversy concerning the title topic as a culminating plotline while you haven’t constructed the character or his story properly sufficient for the viewers to even discern it as controversial?
Courtesy of Searchlight Photos
It’s unimaginable. Dylan the character strikes all through the movie principally as a shadow. When the viewers meets him, he’s slinking by the streets of New York Metropolis along with his guitar on his again. A second when he meets and befriends his idol Woody Guthrie ought to in all probability give audiences a way of who he’s and even what he’s attempting to say in his music. Nevertheless it doesn’t.
All we get is a stiff admission from the character that he’s uncharacteristically nervous assembly and taking part in for Guthrie, who by this level in his life was hospitalized for Huntington’s Illness. It might in any other case be a throwaway line, however since “A Complete Unknown” affords no precise reflection of Dylan’s humanity, the viewers is compelled to hold on to each second of self-awareness.
However there’s barely any within the film. Is Dylan normally a relaxed or assured individual outdoors of being launched to his musical hero? The film appears wholly incurious in what sort of individual he’s. As a substitute, it glides by his romantic relationships with Fanning’s character Sylvie, who the story presents as Dylan’s real love, and people star Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), whose well-documented and tumultuous affair with Dylan is lowered to a thinly plotted bullet level.
In a single scene within the movie, an aggravated Sylvie laments to Dylan that it’s odd that he doesn’t speak about who he’s, the place he comes from, what he stands for or what his music is about. That’s true. Whereas time is a bit blurry all through the movie (time stamps are sparse), the 2 are collectively for a considerable time period, even dwelling collectively by some level, they usually don’t appear to actually know who the opposite individual is — and neither does the viewers. That’s simply lazy storytelling.
Even the transitions all through this quick period of Dylan’s profession, like when he’s at an trade social gathering and complains that everybody within the room desires a unique factor from him, are so fast and poorly constructed that the movie leaves the viewers with extra questions than solutions.
Courtesy of Searchlight Photos
It’s wild {that a} film with such a protracted runtime may refill its minutes with such skinny characterization and story that Mangold and Cocks strive in useless to compensate with one recreated dwell music efficiency after one other. “A Complete Unknown” by no means seems like a lot of a film and positively not a biopic. Moderately, it comes throughout as subpar, reality-adjacent fan fiction.
As a result of it’s too centered on superficially baiting followers — of each Dylan and Chalamet — with quite a few musical performances and romantic interludes than telling a extra sophisticated story that really explores the information, together with the few that really handle to land within the film.
There’s a chance to take action with Barbaro’s position. That is the actor’s most distinguished movie efficiency to this point, and her relative anonymity helps increase her efficiency. Not solely can she a minimum of considerably disappear within the position and let Baez’s character shine in it, the portrayal feels earnest, honest and intriguing even when the movie will not be.
One of many causes that made Baez’s and Dylan’s profession so sophisticated is as a result of she was very politically engaged in these early years of her personal profession, and he was much less so on the time. That’s one thing “A Complete Unknown” fails to take into consideration; as a substitute portraying their relationship as roughly a pompous, philandering musician, and his additionally proficient mistress.
For a movie that’s so awestruck by Dylan’s insurrection, it does little to painting him as a revolutionary — in his music, his politics or in any other case. He really comes throughout typical; a person and dishonest lover whose music propels him into superstardom, who apparently turns into bored along with his girls and music then delivers a rocked-out efficiency that pisses off lots of people.
The true Dylan did get one factor proper in his evaluation of “A Complete Unknown:” It’s… another model of him. And it’s unfulfilling.
