'A Complete Unknown' - A Review

It was a very pleasant surprise to come home on the Tuesday of this past week and discover, over dinner and exams needing my evaluations, that I had won a pair of passes to see an early showing of the Bob Dylan biography, “A Complete Unknown”. It was the very next day – 7 pm on Wednesday at Banque Scotia Cinemas in Montréal – and I could not find anyone at the last minute to join me.

What a shame.

I have not seen many movies this year – volunteering with Montreal’s Fantasia Festival limited my choices to anime, horror, and the weirdest comedies imaginable – and I was looking for something that would make me step away from my laptop and another night of YouTube clips. And this one was it.

For those of you who want more details, and not just a testimonial, this film covers Dylan’s early years (1961 to 1965), just at the moment when he was discovering his voice, switching over to becoming “electric” (debatable point; all post-1925 recorded music could be called electric), and becoming one of the most important cultural figures in American life. And the film treats this particular story with beautiful symmetry. We see Dylan in the back of a station wagon, sketching or making notes before he arrives in New York and ends up visiting two other icons in a hospital: Woody Guthrie (suffering from Huntington’s Disease) and Pete Seeger (trying to provide a respite from the pain with music). Both men seem quite taken with the young talent appearing in their ward with a beaten up guitar and his dreams. When Dylan does return four years later, Pete is gone, but he has a moment with Guthrie that still moves me (both sections involve a harmonica and songs from different ends of both men’s careers). This is truly one of the most moving moments I have seen in any musical biopic, and I am glad that the circle gets closed.

But what about the rest of the film?

Okay, this Timothée Chalamet fellow deserves the tip of my hat. Not only does he resemble Dylan through all these early moments and stages of new wardrobes and larger and larger hair – if there happens to be a Syd Barrett biography being planned, please take note of this performance – but he also gets the voice (almost impossible to make out all his words sometimes), mannerisms, and the guitar work right. Yes, he does sing, as do all of the actors listed here: Edward Norton (a big surprise as Seeger); Monica Barbero (a Joan Baez you can believe in; she let’s Bob have it on stage and in her room when he deserves it); Boyd Holbrook (a youthful Johnny Cash who becomes Bob’s biggest champion). And for those of us who already know the story, one of the other surprises is how the film introduces you to the songs you know so well – Blowin’ in the Wind, The Times They Are A-Changin’, Like a Rolling Stone, Maggie’s Farm, etc. – and yet still manages to surprise and impress you with the magic of those musical discoveries (I will never forget the moment when Dylan first plays "The Times They Are A-Changin’ " and Joan harmonizes with him, or the moment during the Cuban Missle Crisis when she discovers the streets of the city empty of New Yorkers and finds herself in a club where Dylan introduces the audience to "Masters of War"). Those moments made me overlook the fact that I thought some of the pacing was rushed to get to the big moments in Dylan's life (you really do not notice the time passing as you watch, so maybe it was just me), and Suze Rotolo deserved better (Elle Fanning is charming, though; I just wonder who this Sylvie Russo is – please read Ms. Rotolo's memoir of her time with Dylan and life in Greenwich village, “A Freewheelin’ Time,” and consider that she was on the cover of Dylan’s second album; someone should be taken to task for this change).

So, he goes from folk and rural blues to electrified rock and roll and becomes one of the pioneers of the singer-songwriter movement that would dominate popular music. He would even win a Nobel Prize in Literature (still controversial), and become an Academy Award winner who would have an audience with the Pope. His legend is set in the cultural stone of our era and beyond.

But let’s go back to Woody.

Mr. Guthrie, played by Scoot McNairy, can barely utter a word due to his condition (he would eventually die in 1967), but as portrayed by Mr. McNairy, it is one of the most moving performances I have ever seen in a film. The last meeting between Bob and Woody had me pushing away my tears as a harmonica – as mentioned earlier – is passed between the two men. Even the last song played makes sense...

The torch was passed. Who once was first has now become last. And McNairy is the one who should accompany Mr. Chalamet during the awards season in the list of nominations.

Last thoughts: one of the people I invited to see the movie with me mentioned “I’m Not There,” the multiroleplayed film about Dylan through the various stages of his life. Yes, I have seen that film. I was even lucky enough to see a part of it being shot (remember the scene where Dylan hangs out with the Beatles? That was shot in Montreal at city hall; had no idea I was watching Cate Blanchett until one of the crew pointed this out to us rubberneckers). The invitee was not sure that this new film would measure up to what Todd Haynes brought to the story. Well, it doesn’t have to. Director James Mangold and company should take a bow and consider themselves proud of what they have achieved here. They took a story many of us know far too well and let us into the music, hope and pain of the times they lived in.

One of the best of the year?

Absolutely, Sweet Vocalists…

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