A Complete Unknown (2024) - Bob Dylan’s transgressive nature does not carry through to his biopic

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There should be a word to describe a feeling of nostalgia for a time you have never lived through. That sense of both familiarity and longing, fear and desire to create floods James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown – though I am certain those who lived through Bob Dylan’s rise to fame also experience a similar warm feeling of memories dark and light alike, and the longing for a time when life and the possibility of rags to riches was, seemingly, far more simple.

Timothée Chalamet is perfectly adequate as Dylan in this biopic about the early years of fame of the only songwriter and artist to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (the ceremony of which he did not attend, of course). Enlivened first by Woody Guthrie’s music, the young Dylan packs a bag and sets off to visit the ailing musician in hospital – there, he meets his idol, for whom he plays a song, alongside Guthrie’s longtime friend Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) who, entranced by this young musician, invites him to stay with him and his family, forging a friendship that would help Dylan make a name for himself on stage. With Joan Baez and Johnny Cash in tow, what could go wrong?

It is arguably tricky to judge a biopic when one isn’t necessarily a fan (or a connoisseur) of the subject – nevertheless A Complete Unknown is an enjoyable ride regardless, and no doubt a way for many to discover or rediscover the classics of folk (Mr Tambourine Man is criminally underused). The sense of nostalgia emitted is not necessarily down to the time itself, but rather to the cultural scene, and to those who basked in its glow – the time when you could just walk into Woody Guthrie’s hospital and make a name for yourself. Dylan’s origins are indeed unclear, a subject that is to cause immediate friction with his first love in the big city, Sylvie (based on Dylan’s girlfriend Suze Rotolo, the former having asked for her name not to be mentioned), played by Elle Fanning. Dylan is steadfast and apathetic, and opaque about his past – he has appeared on the scene with nothing but his guitar. Unlike Rocketman or Walk the Line, A Complete Unknown is largely devoid of drug use (though Dylan has made it no secret that he struggled with addiction in his youth), focused instead on the relationships he fostered with women and his fellow musicians. While Sylvie plays the role of house cat, Baez (Monica Barbaro) is the panther, the tigress, the one who inhabits Dylan’s rich interior world despite Sylvie’s attempts to match him. She is the one he sings Blowin’ in the Wind with, It Ain’t Me, Babe to, while the other looks on with crushed hopes. In this sense, A Complete Unknown is also refreshing in its ability to detach itself from its central figure – Dylan may be at the heart of the story, but it’s the supporting cast of his life that take the cake, particularly Edward Norton’s understated portrayal of Seeger, a man who believed in the power of community and of folk music to achieve it. It’s a humble performance, and an incredibly moving one for this reason – how one of the most soft-spoken and kindest characters is the one that has the most impact is a testimony both to Seeger’s determination and to Norton’s acting. His traditionalism plays a fundamental part in the arc of the narrative, as Dylan gradually breaks away from folk and attempts something new, culminating in a rather tense performance at the Newport Folk Festival. Despite this, the strength of A Complete Unknown remains in the personalities that took the folk community by storm in the 60s and the performances that go along with it. But this also has its limitations.

Upon his first meeting with Sylvie, Dylan says that it is preferrable to be beautiful or ugly over plain – something people can’t stop looking at, like a car crash. A Complete Unknown fails to do itself justice here – while undoubtedly engaging, it is also surprisingly tame. Many biopics have garnered award nominations and wins over the years – but A Complete Unknown, which seeks to do nothing besides simply show Dylan onscreen, really poses the more and more pressing question as to how far the genre can really go if it does not seek to go beyond the framework that has been established for it.