Timothée Chalamet is, in a word… electric.

The film opens with a young Bob Dylan—guitar in hand, wandering down a street alive with sound. The air is filled with a cacophony of music: fragments of folk ballads, blues riffs, and the hum of urban life. Dylan, played by Timothée Chalamet, is on his way to visit his idol, Woody Guthrie, who has been hospitalized. It's a pilgrimage for Dylan to meet the man whose music shaped his worldview.

When Dylan reaches Guthrie's bedside, Guthrie, bedridden and voicelessly played by Scoot McNairy, is flanked by Pete Seeger, whose soft-spoken compassion is embodied by Edward Norton employing an accent and entering full 'aw-shucks' mode. As Dylan pours out his admiration for Guthrie's songs, Guthrie motions to him with his hand, prompting Seeger to provide the translation. Seeger wants Dylan to play something on the guitar he brought with him. As Timotheestrums the guitar, his fingers moving with familiar ease, and his voice slowly rises to meet the song, it's impossible not to be drawn in. The sound mix here is phenomenal—whether it's Chalamet singing and playing or some blend of digital wizardry, it doesn't matter. In this moment, Chalamet is Dylan. His performance is utterly convincing, capturing not just the likeness of Dylan's music but the spirit of his early, earnest hunger to connect through song. The hospital room feels like the beating heart of the American folk revival, and my reservations about Timothee taking on this role completely melted away.

This introduction showcases Chalamet's talent and serves as a thematic prologue for the film. A Complete Unknowndoesn't attempt to decode Dylan or pull back the curtain on his enigmatic persona. Instead, director James Mangold takes a broader approach, exploring the tension between creativity and commodification. The title, more than just a nod to Dylan's lyrics, underscores the mystery of an artist who offers only glimpses of himself through his music. Mangoldfocuses less on Dylan's interior world and more on the forces trying to mold him—producers, fans, and even his peers. The result is a film that wrestles with the question of how art, once created, is consumed and claimed.

The film's first half centers on Dylan's rise to folk stardom, where he navigates a tight-knit scene filled with larger-than-life personalities. Early on, Seeger introduces Dylan to Joan Baez, played by Monica Barbaro. Barbaro's Baez is a whirlwind—commanding and magnetic, with a presence that immediately draws Dylan into her orbit. As an already-established star, Baez becomes a mentor and muse, but their relationship is fraught with tension. Dylan is awed by her fame but quietly frustrated by the expectations that come with it. Baez's career, built mainly on singing covers of others' songs, parallels the pressure Dylan faces from producers to stick to tried-and-true standards rather than explore his boundless creativity. Barbaro's captivating presence and her dynamic with Chalamet perfectly capture their admiration, rivalry, and unspoken conflict.

The film's second half marks a shift, both sonically and visually. It opens with another street scene, mirroring the beginning but infused with electric energy. Buzzing guitars, pounding drums, and experimental sounds fill the air, signaling not just the British Invasion's cultural dominance but Dylan's own evolution. The transition is seamless, mirroring the era's seismic shifts in music and culture. Mangold uses this build-up to crescendo toward the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, the pivotal moment when Dylan "went electric."

As Dylan's fame grows, so does his restlessness. The film portrays his resistance to being boxed in as a folk singer, a tension that becomes the thematic core of the story. "They just want me singing Blowin' in the Wind for the rest of my God damned life!" Dylan laments after a showcase with record executives. The frustration builds as the film critiques the music industry's commodification of artists and fans' complicity in freezing their idols in amber, unwilling to let them evolve. It poses a provocative question: If you won't allow your favorite artist to change or grow, are you truly a fan of the artist—or just of the version of them you first fell in love with?

The film challenges viewers to reconsider their own relationship with art, asking whether we, as fans, contribute to the very forces that stifle creativity. In some ways, the film takes on a certain metatextual quality in that James Mangold has tackled a music biopic before. He created the definitive iteration with Walk the Line, the biopic about Johnny Cash starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon. Returning to the music biopic genre will certainly have some fans expecting him to "play the hits" and perhaps simply recreate a film that, in many ways, defined the genre. This film even features Johnny Cash, played in scene-stealing fashion by Boyd Holbrook, who radiates the rebellious charisma of the Man in Black. Cash encourages Dylan even as the boos and jeers from the Newport Folk Festival are palpable.

Ultimately, A Complete Unknown is as much about the forces that shape an artist as it is about the artist himself. It's a compelling watch, elevated by Timothée Chalamet's electric performance and support by Monica Barbaro, Edward Norton, and Boyd Holbrook. The film captures Dylan's struggle to navigate the demands of fame, the industry's push to commodify his genius, and the expectations of fans who wanted him to remain a voice of the past rather than a harbinger of change.

Yet, for all its brilliant performances, the film itself leaves Dylan at arm's length, focusing instead on the myth of the man rather than the man himself. Perhaps that's fitting for an artist who has always been an enigma, but it makes the film feel incomplete as a portrait of its subject. James Mangold's lens is thoughtful, but like Dylan at Newport, A Complete Unknown boldly defies expectations. Whether it resonates as profoundly as its subject's music will depend on what you, as a fan of art, are willing to embrace.

— 3.5 / 5 ⭐