A Complete Unknown (2024) Review

“Let go of it Bobby, you won”

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

When people want to know about your life, they have to understand that they don’t need to know everything because yours can happen in such a blur that it can be looked at as A Complete Unknown.


PLOT


Based on Elijah Wald’s novel, ‘Dylan Goes Electric’, 2024’s A Complete Unknown follows the rise of iconic folk musician Bob Dylan. In 1961, he hitchhiked to New York City to meet his idol Woody Guthrie, suffering from Huntington’s Disease. When performing a song he wrote for him, ‘Song to Woody’, it impresses Guthrie’s friend Pete Seeger who invites him to stay with his family and introduce him to the folk scene. In New York does Bob meet fellow folk artist at an open night and impresses manager Albert Grossman who takes him on as a client. Bob doesn’t like the work made for his debut album named after him due to Columbia Records forcing him to do covers and the sales being poor. As success slowly starts, he meets another lady named Sylvie Russo and charms her enough to the point where they date and he moves into her apartment. Their relationship would quickly get complicated though because while he still keeps his past concealed, she still encourages him to make original music before departing on a school trip to Europe. During her trip, Bob would write socially conscious songs that would get Joan’s attention to the point where they’d date and collaborate on music. By ‘65, Bob had broken up with Sylvie and reach achieved fame. Although not having more artistic freedom that he feels beholden of expectations, he would become pen pals with country artist Johnny Cash. When touring with Baez, he would start refusing to perform popular songs and would try walking offstage mid-performance. This would lead to him experimenting on electric rock instruments for his sixth album, ‘Highway 61 Revisited’. This does worry Seeger and the entire planning committee of the Newport Folk Festival since he is intended to headline the event. He tries rekindling things with Sylvie by bringing her to the festival, but when she sees him perform with Baez, she leaves believing she won’t be comfortable with him. With Pete and the committee demanding Dylan to perform only folk music, he’s encouraged by Cash to play the electric set. He goes through with it, which has the crowd go irate. Pete tries cutting the sound until being stopped by not only Grossman, but also his wife Toshi (Eriko Hatsune). Only after Cash offers him an acoustic guitar does he give them what they want through an encore. As Dylan leaves the next morning, Baez catches him to say he got the creative freedom he always wanted. He then visits Woody one more time and listens to one of his songs, “So Long, It’s Been Good to Know Yuh” before departing. The film concludes with an epilogue revealing what happened following the festival: A month later, the release of Highway 61 Revisited topped the charts and has been considered one of Bob’s most influential albums of all time. He reunited with Seeger for a concert in memoir of Woody in ‘68, who never stopped playing folk music and continued advocating for civil rights until passing away in 2014. Baez continued performing music of social justice and made over 30 albums after her hit ‘75 hit, ‘Diamonds and Rust’, which was about her relationship with Dylan. As of 2024, Dylan has released 55 albums, continuing to tour the world and never attended the ceremony for his Nobel Prize award in Literature.


THOUGHTS


The more you think about it, the more you can realize Bob Dylan is too big of an enigma to make a formulaic biopic like it has been done for past musicians, which does defend the existence of “I’m Not There”. Because James Mangold was aware of this having done the Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line, he knew focusing on a certain period of his life would be the way to do justice for the music legend. And if you ask me, I think he did a good job directing such a story. It is of course a condensed story due to not including particular details such as how Bob meet Woody alongside Fred Underhill, was never on Pete's show Rainbow Quest, met producer Bob Neuwirth at a folk festival instead of an elevator, never walked offstage, and was originally attracted to Joan's sister before pursuing her. Putting aside those continuity errors, I still think people will back on this story being a way to say always be authentic when everyone around you says otherwise and when you know there’s a path you want to take, don’t look back because you won’t the results until you go for it. This is the journey Bob was all about and it’s amazing it was portrayed ecstatically by one actor who got to become him with incredible costume design by Arianna Phillips. Timothée Chalamet continues his trailblazing run with an Oscar nominated biopic performance many actors in his generation would kill to have and he doesn’t disappoint. The second you hear him sing ‘I Was Young When I Left Home’, which reflects the departure of youth, you accept he was meant for this role. ‘Fixin to Die’ was about the resignation of an end and ‘All Over You’ being about devotion showed how unpredictable of a mind he always has been, which was his gift to the industry. He never liked talking about his past because he knows that doesn’t define him the way his work does and he moves on so fast from past hits because the present matters more to him. He was more fearless of a guy as he got older because he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind either. ‘Masters of War’, ‘A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall’ and ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’ are classic hits to this day because they each reflect the toll of societal change. ‘When the Ship Comes In’ and ‘I’ll Keep it With Mine’ surprised me as well because they both express a value to safeguard the life you build for yourself. If you ask me, ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ and the title track ‘Highway 61 Revisited’ are equally a magnum opus creation because they express the feeling of disconnect people are afraid to talk about. That is why he was booed off the festival because they the audience at the time weren’t ready to talk about things like that the way he did. Had he not had a supportive friend the way Boyd Holbrook portrayed Johnny Cash, it’s hard to know if he’d keep it up after. Then again, the opportunity to share his voice would’ve not happened without a mentor who thought differently. Edward Norton was fantastic as Pete Seeger because he’s a guy who is wise when taking Bob under his wing, but is only more filtered about addressing social justice in comparison. He is reasonable with the platform, but doesn’t realize he’s holding a protege back in not further expressing inner thoughts. Dan Fogler originally portrays Albert Grossman as one who’s shrewd with ambition but the longer he sticks around with Dylan, the more he realizes he has so much to tell, hence having his back at the festival. Will Harrison was also a big standout as Bob Neuwirth because he shared the feeling of rebellion Dylan has been about and couldn’t help wanting to aid him in continuing to say what matters. Bob’s big inspiration of course will always be a friend he shared with Pete, Woody Guthrie. As Scoot McNairy gives an impressive physical performance as an ailing man, Dylan looked up to him because he admired all the pride he displayed every time he was given a mic and paid it forward. When he said goodbye to him one last time, it came to show he won’t forget his roots which he never did. With such an impactful mark in the entertainment industry, it would be easy to assume he didn’t have time to fall in love until he did. Little did anyone expect a love triangle be an influence in his career. Similar to having not listened to Bob’s music in advance, I never listened to Joan Baez at all and because of that, I got to understand how beloved she’s been as Queen of Folk. Monica Barbaro made her a force to be reckoned with because she’s way more honest compared to Dylan and despite the difference, it was a then opposites attract relationship. ‘Blowin in the Wind’ was my favorite track from this soundtrack because each lyric was a question one human can reflect about general potential. They both related to that feeling, thus getting along so well until their breakup resulted from the chaos of fame itself. On the other end, Elle Fanning was a fellow standout as Sylvie, the film’s iteration of Bob’s girlfriend at the time Suze Rotolo because she was arguably the most normal person in his life for not living in the Fastlane the way he seemed to. She was attracted to him like anyone else, just being enamored with the enigma he released each time he spoke. It didn’t last for her either because apart from his infidelity, she didn’t think she can handle catching up with him the bigger of a star he became. As much as Bob wished things were different, he knew he couldn’t force something never meant to last and luckily, he still found love as he got older. With all these people in his life, there is no doubt he thanks them all for making him be who he want to be and nothing more. In conclusion, A Complete Unknown is a worthy Best Picture nominee due to inspiring viewers the signature theme to stay true to yourself. If you love musical biopics, this is indeed worthwhile.