Even the lives of fascinating people don't always make for great cinema. Mangold does what he can but his Bob Dylan bipoc just doesn't have the story to make it super compelling. He toys with the whole effort to defy categorization thread. He tries with the failed love story thread... twice. But generally A Complete Unknown is the story of a successful artist, who according to this film, just falls into his success due to his incredible talent and there just isn't that much meat on these bones.
Much is made of Chalamet's performance and admittedly it is very good. However, he's always pretty good and I don't necessarily feel that this is his triumphant role. I struggle with finding that much interesting about performances that are mostly "impressions" but they are certainly popular when it comes to Oscars and such (come on, can we all admit The Iron Lady is far from Streep's best work?? Sure it is a good job of mimicking and she's still Streep! But she's done a lot better). My hot take is that's what we're seeing here; a truly talented actor is going to be rewarded for basically copying another famous person.
My problem isn't that he's doing a good Dylan impression. It's that there is so little to A Complete Unknown's Dylan that the most Chalamet can do is act mysterious and do the voice. He does all of that really well. But the film doesn't have a theory on Dylan that is very nuanced or intricate. He's just there a lot of the time and we are make assumptions about cliches like how hard fame is or that great artists need to be assholes a little bit to be great. I don't feel the film makes a compelling case for any of that and honestly there are far more captivating performances out there this year.
The one who really captured my attention is Barbaro who is stunning on screen and honestly plays her take on Joan Baez so subtly and with just a quiet spark of defiance that I couldn't take my eyes off her. Honestly the entire cast is quite good. I just rarely found they gave them much to do. Holbrook's Cash feels like a dues ex machina and Fanning's long suffering girlfriend is never fleshed out enough for either of these talented actors to do much with.
Mangold's direction is respectable. A Complete Unknown is a beautiful film and despite running a little long, rarely drags. I was just never that engaged in the struggle of this story. The struggle is so meager it just never grabbed me, at least not for a full 140 minutes. I am thrilled for Dylan that his life has been as good as it has that his film doesn't have much to work with. He's an incredible talent that has changed music. But watching him be just a bit of a dick and making legendary art while rejecting calls to conform and being a really bad boyfriend just isn't what makes for great cinema.
A Complete Unknown
Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Boyd Holbrook, Dan Fogler, Norbert Leo Butz, Scoot McNairy
Director: James Mangold
Writers: Jay Cocks, James Mangold
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