Mucking with Movies: ‘A Complete Unknown’

At 28 years old, I am just now having my Bob Dylan phase. I’ve listened to songs here and there, and my favorite pastime is going to karaoke nights to sing “Like a Rolling Stone” while pinching my nose to do my worst Dylan impression, but I had never sat down to absorb a whole album.

But a few months ago, I saw Dylan’s biopic “A Complete Unknown” was coming out and figured I should get a jump start on research. My friend recommended I start with “Desire,” and I’ve been blasting “Oh, Sister” ever since. But after this torrent love affair with Dylan’s music, I have been left sadly disappointed by the fictional depiction of his rise. 

First, let’s get ahead of the obvious: There is something extraordinary, almost unsettlingly insane, about Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan. The natural resemblance is uncanny — but in that Hollywood way where they look alike if you had put Dylan through a hotness filter. Chalamet does not rely on this, though; he works hard to contort his chiseled face into a pouty depiction that pairs nicely with the narrative they’re spinning around the mystical and mythical Dylan.

In addition, Chalamet has that gravely, nasally Dylan voice down. With most accents or actorial mimicries, you can usually find one scene or one line where the impersonation is dropped and the performer’s real voice sneaks through. And that’s okay! Acting is hard! Art is really hard! That’s what makes performances like Chalamet’s so impressive. His mask never slips. From his first appearance on screen, as the 19-year-old vagabond dumped penniless grasping his guitar in the West Village through his maturation as a 25-year-old rock star getting booed at the Newport Folk Festival, he replicates Dylan incredibly. But, the problem with his performance is my issue with the film’s entirety: While technically sound, there is nothing emotionally provoking at any point. 

Making a celebrity biopic feel human is a borderline herculean task. From “Capote” to “Straight Outta Compton,” the biopic is designed to lionize its subject into a Hercules. But it is still art, so there must be some grounding.

Director James Mangold is developing the sense of how much Dylan lived within his music, through his music. It seems he hardly felt human, more a vessel for his literature to work through. Every moment in his life is spent obsessing over his next song. Not for anybody else, but for himself, “A Complete Unknown” is a portrait of an artist who becomes an artist because he had no other choice. It exuded out of him so naturally that if it did not come from him, then he may have exploded into a million, billion, trillion pieces. In a world where the word is tossed around like discarded chewed gum, Bob Dylan was a true genius. And like most true geniuses, he was an absolute repellant human. 

To its credit, “A Complete Unknown” never backs down from that premise. That Dylan, despite his gravitas, was an awful human being to be around.

Now here is where the issue in the separation between depiction and story arrives. While the depiction of Dylan is one way, the story is going in an entirely different direction. It is seemingly trying to paint Dylan as a sympathetic figure, particularly when he is staring down the proverbial establishment at the film’s climax, but he comes off as the villain. At one point, my moviegoing buddy turned to me and said “He looks evil.” Edward Norton’s Pete Seeger is positioned as “The Man” to rebel against, but you end up very much on Seeger’s side as the film stutters its way through the finish line. 

Most at blame for this failure is the relationship between Dylan’s love Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning) and himself. Positioned as the story’s lynchpin, it is severely underdeveloped. Sylvie, in particular, is so disgustingly underwritten that she hardly even qualifies as two-dimensional. Instead, she never got off the paper.

If art is supposed to be a thrill ride, this was a lazy river. Lazy rivers are still enjoyable — you get to sit in an inflatable float, ideally with a drink in hand, and watch the world go by. But after about ten minutes, you’re numb. You’re lulled into a dull vegetative state that makes you feel like your brain is on a fun little vacation. “A Complete Unknown” does the same.

I looked down at my notes afterward, and I had hardly written down a thing. While discussing one of the most controversial, polarizing artists in American history, it somehow has nothing to say.

Critic Score: 5.1/10

Jack Simon is a mogul coach and writer/director who enjoys eating food he can’t afford, traveling to places out of his budget, and creating art about skiing, eating, and traveling while broke. Check out his website jacksimonmakes.com to see his Jack’s Jitney travelogue series. You can email him at jackdocsimon@gmail.com for inquiries of any type.