Title: A Complete Unknown
Describe This Movie In One “A Simple Desultory Philippic” Lyric:
SIMON & GARFUNKEL: He’s so unhip when you say Dylan He thinks you’re talking about Dylan Thomas. Whoever he was.
Brief Plot Synopsis: Midwestern boy moves to the big city, where he finds shelter from the storm, or something.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 3.5 I’m Not There’s out of 5. Get it?
Tagline: “He defied everyone to change everything.”
Better Tagline: “The answer, my friend, is wafting in the breeze.”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: 19-year old Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet), né Zimmerman, has just arrived in New York City from Minnesota. After a quick visit to his idol, a hospitalized Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), where he meets legendary singer Pete Seeger (Ed Norton), he quickly makes an impression on the local folk scene. He impresses both the legendary Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) and manager Albert Grossman (Dan Fogler), who immediately signs him as a client. Frustrated with the strictures of folk music, Dylan’s fame nonetheless grows, culminating in a groundbreaking performance at the Newport Folk Festival.
“Critical” Analysis:
Mangold is to be credited for not straying from the set period. By confining the narrative to the years 1961-65, he emphasizes the shock wave of his Newport performance instead of relegating it to the finale of Act One. We also get really immersed in that early ’60s Greenwich Village vibe (I say “Greenwich Village vibe” like I still wasn’t years away from being born at the time), and the sense of both hope and stagnation within the folk scene.
These formative years also give Chalamet free rein to chart Dylan’s rise from fledgling folkie to what some have called voice of a generation. The young man is up to the task, embodying not just Dylan’s mannerisms and voice, but also his maddening insistence on fabricating his own backstory.
Amusing to him, undoubtedly, but maddening to his girlfriend at the time, Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning, playing a renamed version of Suze Rotolo, whose real name Dylan asked not be used). Credited with helping awaken Dylan’s political sensibilities, she also ran out of patience for his self-made mysterious façade, and grew suspicious of his relationship with Baez.
Suspicions that turned out to be well-founded. Look, even Dylan neophytes like myself know the notes Mangold is going to hit. Dylan himself making up his history dovetails nicely with the usual biopic tropes, which don’t pummel us quite so much as in Walk the Line, Mangold’s previous foray (Boyd Holbrook’s Johnny Cash is also much less tortured than Joaquin Phoenix’s).
Mangold is also still a fan of letting his actors provide their own vocals, and Chalamet perhaps has an easier time with Dylan’s stylings than Phoenix did. But where A Complete Unknown exceeds WTL is — again — in its focus, and also the strength of its supporting characters.
Okay, maybe “character.” Norton’s Seeger is everything Dylan is not: open, earnest, and hidebound by tradition. He’s so sincere that A Complete Unknown might be the closest thing we get to a Death to Smoochy sequel.
The Newport Folk Festival climax, legendary as it is, threatens to be a bit of a letdown, until the performances start. The opening piano chords to “Like A Rolling Stone” still give you chills 60 years after they were first dropped. And the look of betrayal on those beatniks’ faces…beautiful.
Bob Dylan is the only musician to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. He’s routinely at the top of lists ranking the greatest songwriters of all time. His influence is practically immeasurable, And A Complete Unknown gives us a glimpse of this.
Having said that, maybe we could’ve used fewer shots of people gaping at him at awe.
A Complete Unknown is in theaters today.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.
