“A Complete Unknown” was not on my radar at all for new movie releases. I had never even heard of it before I went to the movie theater with a friend. I didn’t know until I sat down in the theater that this was going to be a biography based on the music career of folk artist, Bob Dylan.
Bob Dylan is not an unfamiliar name to me. I had heard a few songs of his before, but that was it.
Now, I can’t believe at one point Bob Dylan was a nobody to me.
This movie was an awakening to me in the sense of music. Country music is a genre I tend to avoid due to the new age wave of it that makes music about empty topics, such as mindless rambling about drinking or farming. Folk music ended up being under that umbrella of country I couldn’t care less about.
“A Complete Unknown” broke my stubbornness when it came to folk music, and that is due to the moving storytelling done in this movie.
From the moment I saw Timothee Chalamet portraying Bob Dylan on the screen, I could feel the rawness in the film. A young musician, hitchhiking to see his idol, Woody Guthrie, as he laid in a hospital bed.
It pulled me in from the start. Let alone the moment when he played a song for Guthrie that for some reason made me tear up a little. The stillness of the camera in the moment of Dylan playing a guitar in a quiet hospital room made it feel so much deeper than a movie. It was someone’s beautifully imperfect life being retold in front of my eyes. Many of the shots in the movie were filmed in a calm and still way, making it feel all the more real.
This movie encapsulated the moment so perfectly that I knew that this movie was going to be an emotional ride for me as a chronic movie crier.
The acting was phenomenal, there was nothing that felt awkward or out of place. There were moments I was fully convinced I was watching a documentary made during Dylan’s career because of how compelling the acting was. I was locked into the screen for the whole thing and truly felt the emotions displayed throughout the film.
I will admit, when Chalamet opened his mouth and had this interesting, twangy voice going, I was a little taken aback. I was used to hearing his slightly New Yorkin accent and his voice being much louder. He was so soft spoken in this movie and it reminded me of my family living in rural areas who have that southern twang to their voice.
Chalamet was Bob Dylan.
But, even now, I think he brought his own character quirks to this role. The voice acting grew on me as the movie continued, except for when things got a little serious and he still had this overly nasal tone in his voice.
Chalamet’s singing in this movie was exceptional, even outshining the originals at moments. To be fair after diving into Dylan’s music after seeing the movie, it isn’t some of the most difficult songs to sing due to most of them being him just talking and rambling. This movie showed that the most influential thing about Dylan’s music was not the actual music composition, which I personally tend to care more about, but the commentary he had on the things happening in the world. That alone made me see the significance of folk music.
The punk-like nature of folk music shifted how I felt about it and made me have a little more respect for the songs. I’m not sure if it was seeing someone singing it with so much emotion or if I just hadn’t heard enough folk music, but I am now totally hooked. I walked out of the movie theater pulling up Bob Dylan on my Spotify and haven’t taken out my earbuds since.
As for the movie, the first little jump in time was slightly confusing for me. I got lost in the midst of it. It felt like all of a sudden Bob Dylan was famous and us as the viewers were just supposed to catch on. Later I understood that there were just big gaps in Dylan’s life where there wasn’t much happening. With a little more context, the story might have felt a little fuller but from my understanding there was much context to give. During those gaps of the movie Dylan just made more of the same folk albums as before.
Despite those few odd jumps, the story’s progression was reasonable and easy to keep track of. Someone like me who knew nothing about Dylan was able to grasp the majority of his music career through this movie which means that the storytelling was effective.
The scene that was the big moment for me was at the Newport Folk Festival when Bob Dylan went electric and rock and roll. The movie captured the intensity of emotions coming from the crowd when this happened in real life. Chaos ensued while people yelled criticism and threw things on stage.
I felt my eyes darting across the screen to see all the angry faces while watching this scene. The way they filmed this made it feel as though I was on stage performing and people were screaming at me. This made the emotional pull of the film way more intense and gave it depth compared to just watching Dylan perform.
This performance in his life is well known as one of his largest controversies and I’m very pleased with how effectively it was displayed in this movie.
The complete contrast of the peaceful versus the loudest and wildest points of the movie was very beautiful to me. The way they kept the calm scenes quiet with little to no background music and soft lighting felt so real and like a real moment from someone’s life.
A specific instance I saw this a lot in was in Dylan’s apartment with former girlfriend Sylvie Russo, played by Elle Fanning. The visual of this apartment in the movie was a sun-kissed area with the windows always open, breeze blowing through. It was always quiet, and I think it in a way is inspired by who Sylvie was to Dylan. In the movie, we see Dylan always come back to Sylvie and she seems to be his comfort in life when he needs it most.
That was just one of the displays of uncensored and messy human emotions that made me fall in love with this movie. It was clear to me that the relationship they had, although sweet, was very toxic for both of them considering Dylan cheated on her. What I took from their relationship in the movie was two people who had love for each other, but it just didn’t work out.
Both Chalamet and Fanning did a wonderful job at making their relationship on screen seem so full and real, as if they had been together for years. This brought out the emotions behind folk music to me too. Seeing these people be who they are and make music about their lives made me feel something deep in my heart.
My connection to this movie came from being a musician myself. Seeing the process of someone making it big was inspiring. This movie quite literally made me want to pick up an acoustic guitar and harmonica and get to work. To be able to invoke that kind of emotion out of your viewer is powerful and shows how flawless this film was.
“A Complete Unknown” was a charming and organic retelling of the life of singer Bob Dylan. I give this film a four out of five stars. If it wasn’t for the slight emptiness in the story in this movie and the interesting voice acting from Chalamet, this would have been a 5-star movie for me.
