By John Corrado

Director James Mangold arguably perfected the modern biopic structure with Walk the Line, his Oscar-winning 2005 portrait of country singer Johnny Cash. Mangold now returns to this genre and time period with his Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown (in fact, Cash is even featured here as well, as a contemporary of Dylan’s).

Dylan, one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time, is played here by Timothée Chalamet. The young actor delivers an excellent, full-bodied performance, impressively capturing Dylan’s voice and mannerisms, and even doing his own singing and guitar playing.

Chalamet’s portrayal of the aloof genius centres Mangold’s film, which works as musical biopic and freewheelin’ portrait of Dylan’s time in Greenwich Village, and is equally enjoyable as both. The film opens in 1961, with a young Bob Dylan arriving in New York by taxi cab, guitar in hand, to visit his idol Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) in the hospital. He is soon taken under the wing of Pete Seeger (Edward Norton), who is watching over Guthrie’s bedside.

The two request a song, and sit in awe as the young Dylan reluctantly performs for them. The scene works on two levels; it’s an early test of Dylan’s talents in the film, and instant proof that Chalamet has nailed his portrayal. From here, the screenplay, co-written by Mangold and Jay Cocks, takes us through key moments. It focuses on his dalliances with artist Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning) and folk singer Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), as well as his pen-pal friendship with Johnny Cash. Cash is portrayed here by Boyd Holbrook, putting his own spin on the man played by Joaquin Phoenix in Walk the Line.

The film offers an enigmatic portrayal of Dylan; he doesn’t want to talk about his past as Robert Zimmerman or where he came from, and the film doesn’t either, aside from vague references to working at the carnival. He’s forging a new path and crafting his own narrative through his songs. The film itself could be seen as an extension of this storytelling. It’s about telling a good story centred around Dylan’s early days, first and foremost.

As such, A Complete Unknown often works wonders at evoking its time and place. It immerses us in the folk music scene of the early-1960s through the costumes, production design, and Phedon Papamichael’s beautiful cinematography. The musical performance scenes in particular are excellent, and Mangold is wise to highlight them. There is a concert movie feel to the film at times that really works.

In addition to Chalamet, Barbaro as Baez and Norton as Seeger are also standouts. Barbaro’s Baez is the one who calls him out for his distant qualities (when she accuses him of being an asshole, his response is basically a shrug). Norton’s Seeger serves as wise mentor, while also recognizing that he needs to pass the torch, and the scenes between him and Dylan are in many ways the film’s emotional backbone.

A big focus of the film’s last act is on Dylan “going electric,” including his infamous performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, when he plugged in and received a hostile response from the crowd. It’s recreated here to thrilling effect. Mangold doesn’t frame it as him selling out, but rather revolutionizing his art. The screenplay scratches at something deeper about needing to innovate in order to remain relevant and continue being transgressive.

This is Dylan as the modern troubadour, understanding how his contemporaries like Seeger and Baez are trying to use folk music as a tool for social change, but also want it to remain stuck in the past. In effect, his blazing Newport set, as it is depicted here, serves as tear-it-all-down performance art. A big reason why Chalamet’s performance works so well is because we can tell that the actor simply “gets” Dylan, particularly how the artist responded to fame and was able to maintain his own hold on the culture by defiantly doing his own thing.

Watching Dylan’s story unfold in some ways mirrors Chalamet’s skyrocketing career. The actor has one foot planted in old school movie stardom and the other in modern celebrity; he’s delivering a carefully calibrated performance as a musical giant of the past, and promoting it through a modern press tour of podcast appearances and moments made to go viral on social media. In this way, his casting becomes a stroke of genius, helping A Complete Unknown crucially pass Bob Dylan’s music on to a new generation.

Film Rating: ★★★½ (out of 4)

A Complete Unknown opened exclusively in theatres on December 25th.