In 1961, an unknown 19-year-old Bob Dylan arrives in New York City with his guitar and forges relationships with music icons on his meteoric rise, culminating in a groundbreaking performance that reverberates worldwide.

Bob Dylan is the latest musical artist to get the biopic treatment, with James Mangold returning to the genre after the success he had with the Johnny Cash movie ‘Walk the Line’ nearly twenty years ago. ‘A Complete Unknown’ follows Bob Dylan in the early years of his career from his breakthrough to the release of his seminal album ‘Highway 61 Revisited’, covering his transition from folk music to a more electric sound that caused controversy at the time. Timothée Chalamet stars as the mercurial singer-songwriter and is already looking like one of the leading contenders for the Best Actor award at this year’s Oscars, with support coming from Edward Norton, Elle Fanning and Monica Barbaro amongst others.

In a career that has spanned over 60 years, it’d be impossible to cover it all, so Mangold chooses to hone in on the first 5 or so formative years when Dylan was establishing him, going from meeting his heroes in Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) and Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) to surpassing them in popularity and achievements. I felt the movie did a good job of providing an insight into the type of person Dylan was, and Chalamet is really good at capturing different facets of his personality from his undoubted musical genius to the nonchalance in which he treats friends, accomplices and lovers alike. He is also excellent at replicating both Dylan’s speaking and singing voice – no easy task! Dylan’s casual indifference to everyone around him comes through, as does his unwillingness to conform to what is expected of him; traits, in many respects, that made him both the genius creative singer-songwriter that he is, and also an often difficult man to get along with, or as Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez puts it “You’re kind of an asshole Bob”.

Like most of the best music biopics, it tells a good story and reminds you of how many good songs the artist at the centre has, although it would be remiss to not touch on the creative choices in the making of the movie that alters timelines and merges personalities for a more concise story. Hardcore Dylan fans may have an issue with that, but for those less familiar, I think it’ll matter less (as previously successful recent music biopics have shown i.e. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘Elvis’). I thought Edward Norton was great as Pete Seeger, a bit of a mentor to Dylan and a great artist in his own right, while as Joan Baez, Monica Barbaro stands out as a solid foil for Chalamet’s Dylan. In terms of Elle Fanning, her performance is fine as his on-off girlfriend Sylvie (based on Suze Rotolo), although I felt the filmmakers struggled to understand what to really do with her character.

‘A Complete Unknown’ builds towards the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where Dylan is the headliner, shortly after he’d changed his sound and started experimenting with electric guitars and a more rock based sound. There are accusations of Dylan betraying his folk roots from the committee, and in a counter, accusations towards the organisers of being gatekeepers over music and being unwilling to embrace anyone trying something different. Those familiar with Dylan will know how this particular show went down, and what the impact was on him after, and it makes for a compelling conclusion to what is a very good music biopic and a very good movie. I’ll go and put on some Dylan now then!

Rating: 4/5

Directed By: James Mangold

Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Boyd Holdbrook, Scoot McNairy, Dan Fogler, Norbert Leo Butz, P. J. Byrne, Will Harrison, Eriko Hatsune and Charlie Tahan

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt11563598/