Quick Synopsis: Dylan goes electric! Eventually.

Bob Dylan is an odd kind of celebrity. If you asked someone “do you recognise the name Bob Dylan?”, the majority of the English-speaking Western world would say yes. They could also probably name some of his songs. “Now, here are five photos of men dressed in casual clothes. Which one is Bob Dylan?” would be a much harder question. It’s not just age, his look is oddly fluent. At times he looks like one of the most handsome men who’s existed, and at other times he looks like he’s about to ask you for spare change so he can buy a bottle of White Lightning. It’s why I’m Not There worked despite featuring a multitude of Dylans. All of this is a long way for me to say that I’m not entirely opposed to Timothee Chalamet as the title role. Yes, I had objections to his singing abilities in Wonka, but if you think it’s weird someone doesn’t sing Bob Dylan songs in perfect pitch, then you’ve never listened to Bob Dylan.

The performances were some of my favourite parts of A Complete Unknown (Or, ACU, pronounced Ack-oo), Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez is a particular highlight. Edward Norton is okay but is occasionally a bit too “Mr Rogers”, which he may have been in real life, I don’t know. Boyd Holbrook is an unexpectedly good Cash, not quite as good as Phoenix was, but good enough that you don’t sit there thinking “That’s not Phoenix”. I was pleasantly surprised with how well Scoot McNairy performed as Woody Guthrie. Not because I don’t rate him as a performer, but because at the time, Woody Guthrie was in very poor health due to his battle with Huntington’s Disease. That’s a very hard disease to pull off on screen, especially when it’s at the stage it was here. If you go too far it can come off as unrealistic and kind of offensive, but if you don’t go far enough then it downplays how horrific it can be. McNairy has a difficult balance to achieve but manages it. Best of all, nobody is a vocal failure in terms of singing either.

On the downside? The script itself is lacking. It’s kind of dull at times, suffering from a lack of focus. It’s primarily about a singular incident, the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. You know, a time when instead of getting offended at silly things like sexual assault and unelected billionaires in charge of everything, people got offended at things that really mattered, such as black people sitting on a bus, and a folk musician playing an electric guitar. That’s partly why it’s difficult to buy into this. Yes, it was a HUGE deal, but it’s something so incredibly stupid that it’s difficult to build an effective opposition. The people against him aren’t given enough of a defence that they seem logical. I know, the reality is unrealistic and all, it’s the same issue that films about MLK have, the viewpoints of his opposition were so ridiculous in reality it’s difficult to showcase them onscreen in an effective way.

It’s not helped by how the narrative doesn’t seem to be building towards that moment. It’s just a loose series of events connected by its main character, which happens to end at the folk festival. It’s not detailed enough to count as a proper biography, so you don’t really learn enough about him. Much like the Elvis film from a few years ago, he goes from (pardon the obvious) a complete unknown to a massive star almost instantly in screen time. It’s almost like ACU feels it has to tell us he’s a big deal, and how he became a big deal, before getting to the main crux, but then realised it ran out of time so had to fit the whole Folk Festival plot in very quickly.

I liked some of the character set-up though. The moments between him and Baez on stage are beautiful, particularly when that chemistry causes Dylans’ relationship to break up. No words need to be said, the chemistry between the two, and his girlfriend noticing that and storming off, says it all. Looking at it now, most of my favourite moments from this did involve the music. The bits of him complaining about his record label forcing him to record an album of mostly covers? Meh. Dylan is surrounded by industry suits and feels like a musical prostitute. Okay, nothing special. Dylan sings The Times They Are A-Changing for the first time and the crowd spontaneously joins in? Magic. Dylan plays Song To Woody to Woody as Pete Seeger watches? Beautiful.

As a tool to learn about Bob Dylan? It’s not that great. As a way for people who are already aware of Bob Dylan to see some of the moments onscreen? It’s pretty cool. If you know the players involved in this story, it is fascinating to see them. If you don’t? There’s not enough for you to delve into.

Much like Bob Dylan himself, it feels like ACU truly comes alive when it’s onstage, and the day-to-day life is kind of not worth examining.