"A Complete Unknown": review

L: the real Joan Baez and Bob Dylan; R: Monica Barbaro as Baez and Timothée Chalamet as Dylan

2024's "A Complete Unknown" is a heavily fictionalized retelling of a part of singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's youth during the mid-1960s, with the United States in deep ferment as war, the Civil Rights movement, and several prominent assassinations (JFK, Malcolm X) all converge. It is based in part on the 2015 book Dylan Goes Electric! by Elijah Wald. The film was directed by James Mangold ("Cop Land"; "Walk the Line"; "The Wolverine"; perhaps most famously, "Logan"; and perhaps most infamously, "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny"). Given the movie's myriad factual inaccuracies, it's little different from other musical and non-musical "biopics" that I've reviewed and should be taken more as a fable based on a historical figure—a vehicle for exploring issues more than an actual, serious examination of someone's life. Bob Dylan, still alive and 83 as of this writing, is blessed or cursed with being one of those people who knew what it was to be on fire for a time, and who affected the cultural tapestry so deeply, and for so long, that he became lionized and mythologized—and lived to see this happen. Never known for his stellar singing (Dylan often flirted with being off-key, overly nasal, and non-musical, except for that one time after he'd supposedly quit smoking, and maybe for one album thereafter), Dylan was hailed as a masterful songwriter, his words being spoken and sung even today. The film stars Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan, Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, Elle Fanning as the fictional Sylvie Russo (based on the real-life Suze Rotolo, Dylan's then-girlfriend), Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash, Dan Fogler as Albert Grossman, Eriko Hatsune as Toshi Seeger, Will Harrison as Bob Neuwirth, and Scoot McNairy as Woody Guthrie.

The story begins with a 20-year-old Dylan hitching a ride out to visit the famous singer Woody Guthrie, struck down by Huntington's chorea and now unable to talk or even to move properly. Guthrie is looked after by fellow folk singer Pete Seeger; Dylan happens upon the two in the hospital; he claims to have written a tune in Guthrie's honor, which Seeger prompts him to perform. Dylan does so, breaking out his guitar and impressing both men with his talent. Seeger invites Dylan to stay at his home for a bit to give him time to get on his feet; Dylan meets Seeger's Japanese wife Toshi and their cute, polite half-and-half daughters. As time goes on, Dylan gets an agent and is signed on to a label, mainly thanks to the work of talent scout and manager Albert Grossman. Dylan meets Sylvie Russo, and the two end up living together. Meanwhile, the singer makes a name for himself singing at various venues inside and outside of New York City. He meets Joan Baez, who is affected by Dylan's lyrics; they start an affair. Baez is talented, but Dylan sees her as a lesser talent who tries too hard and who seems satisfied with often singing covers of other people's lyrics. Still, the two have enough respect to appreciate each other's gifts, and they perform plenty of duets. But Dylan, still young and still exploring, becomes increasingly frustrated with being pigeonholed as a folk singer; he wants to branch out to rock and country, to produce an album that will be his original music, his original sound, and not merely the safe and familiar folk music for which he has become adored. During this time, Dylan meets Johnny Cash, who becomes a pen pal, encouraging Dylan to pursue his interests and to find his true voice. Sylvie, of course, suspects Dylan of sharing something deeper with Baez—something Sylvie herself can't manifest, not being a fellow singer-songwriter. Things come to a head in 1965 during the yearly Newport Folk Festival, when Dylan decides the time has come to break out the electric guitars and introduce the audience to a new, rebellious sound. The audience, unsurprisingly, isn't pleased.

The title "A Complete Unknown" comes from the lyrics of one of Bob Dylan's most famous songs, the 1965 "Like a Rolling Stone."

How does it feel, how does it feel?
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone

The film portrays a Bob Dylan who, like a rolling stone, had always found it hard to settle. His unfaithfulness, the movie theorizes, was a function of his wandering spirit, and Sylvie, partly under his spell, is hurt but finds it hard at first to break away from his toxicity. Perhaps ashamed of his past, or perhaps because he wanted to protect her, Dylan specifically requested that the real-life Suze Rotolo be fictionalized as Sylvie Russo for the film, which Timothée Chalamet co-produced. (The film glosses over the fact that Rotolo was the daughter of communist radicals.) But the movie's Dylan mostly remains a cipher; the women in his life express frustration at his taciturnity even while they respect his yearning for artistic freedom. At several points throughout the story, Dylan is asked who he really is and what he really wants, and his answers are always evasive. Perhaps he didn't and doesn't know.

I have to give credit to all of the actors who did their own singing and playing; Chalamet spent years practicing the guitar, the harmonica, and singing in a Bob Dylan style; he does a fairly convincing vocal impersonation and ended up with a Best Actor Oscar nomination. Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar; she also acquits herself well in her role, doing great work with vocals and instrumentals, and as in all of her other roles (see here), she's a gorgeous feast for the eyes. She's also—as I found out the other day—the chick with a nail in her forehead from that old, viral YouTube skit "It's Not About the Nail." Edward Norton, with a slightly altered nose, is the earnest, Mr Rogers-like Pete Seeger, who is among the first to see Dylan's potential. Elle Fanning as Sylvie capably engendered a great deal of sympathy as a woman who could only ever be secondary to Dylan's muse and his libido. Eriko Hatsune, as Toshi Seeger, is bizarrely memorable for her constantly, almost comically, troubled expression, but at the end of the film, there's a moment where she sides with Dylan and against her husband. And Scoot McNairy, in the role of Woody Guthrie, deserves mention for his memorable "bookend" performance as a dying legend, appearing at the beginning and at the end of this story.

By rights, Bob Dylan has all the makings of a tragic figure—the talent, the ego, the licentiousness (with the accompanying procession of women), the drive, the weird sense of purpose coupled with a disconcerting emptiness as to who and what he really is. It's tempting to say the man should have died early, but some quirk of character kept him away from extremes and, a bit like the leathery Keith Richards, he persists to this day as if he were more of a weathered landmass than a human being. How strange to have grown famous, then to remain famous and to witness the evolution of that fame. Is the Dylan of today satisfied and settled, or is he still the same quietly agitated, spiritually itinerant figure?

Was a folk-music venue the right place for Bob Dylan to break out his new sound? I tend to think he could have found another venue for self-expression, but the movie portrays Dylan as insistent: he wanted to show off his electric-guitar chops, and his reengineered rock-and-roll persona, at Newport. The movie is smart enough to show most of the audience rejecting the new sound while some in the audience clearly embrace it. The gathered performers, meanwhile, understand Dylan's frustration and sympathize as fellow artists, especially Johnny Cash, who is 110% on Dylan's side.

Bob Dylan has led a charmed, quirky life, it seems. This isn't his first biopic, either: there's another one out there called "I'm Not There," in which Dylan is portrayed by several different actors, male and female. And there are many other documentaries besides: this is what happens when you live long enough to witness the lingering effects of your own fame.

On the whole, I found "A Complete Unknown" to be an absorbing movie about a still-mysterious figure. Joan Baez has apparently done plenty of interviews about her relationship with Dylan; one of her later songs is supposedly about him. Dylan as a figure to decode remains a frustrating mystery, possibly even to himself, and the "biopic" plays fast and loose with facts and chronology, meaning the film should be treated less as a straightforward telling and more as a parable or fable, a vehicle for issues like the artistic tug of war between internal freedom and external constraints (including the confining trap of fan expectations); the meta-issue of what happens when one lives long enough to be overtaken by one's own fame (I should note that Joan Baez is 84 and still kicking); and the question of how music can deeply affect a person, a group, and a culture. As with other musical biopics, "A Complete Unknown" made me yearn for the company of my brothers, both of whom studied and appreciate music more deeply than I do. We could all use a bit more music in our lives. The movie rarely gives us any complete version of Dylan's songs (or Seeger's, Guthrie's or Baez's), but that could be a good reason to go seek out those songs oneself, to give them a listen, and to remember.