‘A Complete Unknown’ Shows A New Side To Timothée Chalamet

Coming out hot from showing off his musical talent in Wonka, where he channeled his inner theater kid to play the chocolate-loving sweetheart, Timothée Chalamet delivers a surprisingly confident musical performance in A Complete Unknown to embody the character of the ever-so-famous Mr. Bob Dylan. This was a tough feat for Chalamet to hurdle, having only focused on acting for the majority of his career.

But the challenge did not go unnoticed, as he explains in an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. In fact, Chalamet pushed his limits and sang Dylan’s classic songs live on set. His reasoning for committing to the bit was simple, “How do you satisfy an obsessive, far-reaching fandom that’s had more than six decades to calcify their ideas and sharpen their attention to detail while also engaging a younger audience for whom the draw may be the star rather than the subject?”

While the casting might have been initially deemed controversial back in 2020, Chalamet has definitely proven his range and worth since. In A Complete Unknown, Chalamet becomes an entirely different persona altogether and embodies Dylan all the way down to his voice.

Watch the trailer for the movie below:

A Complete Recap

The movie begins in 1961, following a young Bob Dylan freshly moved to New York to pursue his music career. Meeting his favorite musicians, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, in the hospital, Dylan plays a few songs for them and Seeger starts to look to jumpstart Dylan’s career. Dylan books a few concerts to introduce himself to the New York City crowd. He meets Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning) at one of his concerts, and the two fall in love and move in together. 

Dylan performs at an open mic night following a Joan Baez performance, earning him a talent manager. Dylan begins to work on his first album, one that he has no creative control over, but falls flat due to poor record sales. Preparing for his next album, Dylan moves to Europe and is inspired by the social turmoil to write political lyrics. Baez, impressed, begins to collaborate more with Dylan, and the two begin an affair. Russo sees the two creating music together in the news and, heartbroken, breaks up with Dylan.

After an argument about what songs to perform on his long-awaited tour, Dylan frustratedly pivots his musical direction to Rock. The new direction of his music worries his management, who hired him to headline the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. The audience erupts into an uproar during Dylan’s performance, throwing physical objects at him and the band. Dylan continues his performance, ignoring the crowd, and leaves satisfied, knowing that he gave the natural performance he always wanted. Dylan leaves Newport the next morning as the accomplished musician he always aspired to be.

Review:

There’s a lot of great stuff to say about A Complete Unknown. In my opinion, there’s nothing Chalamet could’ve done to give a better vocal and character performance than he did; and I see nothing wrong with the casting decision. While usually a draw for the type-cast that Chalamet brings to some of his characters, this film brings a unique flavor to Chalamet that only adds to the intense range of portrayals he’s capable of.

As a director, I don’t know how much James Mangold actually brought to the table, despite being nominated for a DGA Best Director award for the film. While stylized with a film effect to make it feel like a Mansgold movie, there isn’t much substance that can be attributed to him other than the heart and joy he can bring to a production. However, I do understand that he’d be responsible for having Timotheé Chalamet and Elle Fanning attached to this project, so thank God he made this happen.

The film itself quite impressed me, but there isn’t much separating it from the rest of the musical biopic subgenre. Between this film and Better Man, a movie that understood the saturation of biopic movies and attempted to diversify itself from the others by having a monkey play Robbie Williams as an allegory, A Complete Unknown may even fall flat with audiences due to the other option. 

Overall, I genuinely have a love for biopic movies about musicians for some reason, so I always welcome a movie that forces the main characters to act outside their comfort zone. Chalamet was so impressive that he’s been tasked to perform these Bob Dylan classics as his own material for Saturday Night Live on January 25. The film is also rumored to be up for Best Picture and Best Actor nominations at the Academy Awards, so I’m excited to see how A Complete Unknown fares out in its future.

Searchlight Pictures’ A Complete Unknown was directed by James Mangold and stars Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan, Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, Elle Fanning as Sylvie Russo, Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, Joe Tippett as Dave Van Ronk, Eriko Hatsune as Toshi Seeger, Peter Gray Lewis as Frank, and Dan Fogler as Albert Grossman. The film was released in theaters on December 25 and will be available to rent/purchase on digital soon. 

Thanks for reading this A Complete Unknown review. For more biopic reviews, stay tuned for our review of Better Man here at Feature First.