Like a Complete Unknown movie review

Bob Dylan would probably prefer it if you knew as little about him as possible. It is best not even that he is actually called Robert Allen Zimmerman. The music legend, which was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, is happy to hide behind the great sunglasses and instead lets her famous lyrics speak for themselves. Bob Dylan has also been against films for a long time. In the mid -2000s, director Todd Haynes only received permission because his experimental approach provided that the singer should be embodied by half a dozen different actors (including Heath Ledger, Richard Gere and Cate Blanchett), of which in the film Nobody is called Bob Dylan either. Nevertheless, “I'm not there” came to the mystery of Dylan and its many personas incredibly close-and that's why it is one of the best music biopics in history.

James Mangold (“Indiana Jones 5”) chose “Like a Complete Unknown“Now a much more classic approach. Based on the non -fiction book “Dylan Goes Electric!” By Elijah Wald, the musician's biggest breakthrough towards the greatest controversy of his career is not even five years before the great breakthrough. Nevertheless, the new music biopic of the “Walk the Line” director remains more superficial than Haynes' “I'm not there”. A bad film is therefore far from “Like a Complete Unknown”, on the contrary: the rather classic story opens up a number of opportunities to shine the impressive cast. And the great music scenes are always real highlights, which also blossom in between for many staunches.

Timothée Chalamet is great, but even its performance the Enigma Bob Dylan cannot decipher.

Timothée Chalamet is great, but even its performance the Enigma Bob Dylan cannot decipher.

In 1961 the young Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) came to New York to see his idol Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), lying in the hospital. He also gets to know the musician Pete Seeger (Edward Norton), who is impressed by the talent of the young man and takes him under his wing. For Dylan, Seeger organizes the opportunity to appear in a bar after the successful Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro). Their manager Albert Grossman (Dan Fogler) is immediately fire and flame from the newcomer and will soon get his first record deal. But on his first LP, Dylan is only allowed to sing cover versions of old folk classics. Who wants to hear what a young man has to say in her early 20s?

During one of his appearances, Dylan also meets Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning), with whom he begins a relationship and contracts. With her political views, the activist influences the songwriter and encourages him to fight for his own songs. But the breakthrough only succeeds when he meets Baez again, begins an affair and allows her to cover some of his creations. Dylan becomes the new star of the folk scene and at the same time a growing youth movement. His songs “Blowin 'in the Wind” and “The Times They Are A-Man” become hymns of a generation that demonstrates for equality and against wars. But the musician himself feels increasingly creative due to his success-and finally even reaches for the electrical guitar, which means that he leaves the entire folk scene …

The music scenes are clearly the best

James Mangold rattles some important stations in Bob Dylan's early career. Again and again he returns to the annual Newport Folk Festival, where the most important sizes in the industry appear and Dylan finally ensures riots in 1965. As the headliner of the festival, he refuses to play his folk hits. Instead, he wants to perform new electric pieces with his new band. The crowd rebelled, there is riots, his old friend Seeger even tries to destroy the technology to force a demolition. But Bob Dylan simply continues to play, ignores the mobbing and objects that have been hung to him. In retrospect, the concert becomes one of the most famous and controversial in music history.

“Like a Complete Unknown” is always best when chard makes the appearances speak for themselves as in such scenes. Two moments of music also provide a much better insight into the relationship between the musician to Sylvie Russo (which was modeled on Dylans Suze Rotolo) as all of her dialogue scenes: when Sylvie is at the 1963 edition of the Newport Folk Festival Bob Dylan and Joan Baez watch on stage together, she cannot avoid the painful insight that she is not just listening to a musical couple. If Dylan wants to reconcile with her two years later, she once again gives her a musical performance that this relationship with a self -concentrate has no future.

The appearances always turn out to be absolute highlights from

The appearances always turn out to be absolute highlights from “A Complete Unknown”.

There is only one reason that Elle Fanning, in contrast to Timothée Chalamet, Monica Barbaro and Edward Norton, was not nominated for an Oscar: she has the most ungrateful figure because the story forgets her again and again and presses it on the edge. The big moments belong to the others, who also know how to use it fully. Here, too, the musical moments are the highlights. Basically, “Like a Complete Unknown” is a bob-dylan film, but Swiss chard also wanted to make an ensemble piece. In the illustrious cast not only “Top Gun 2” star Barbaro with her impressive performance as Joan Baez and the four-time Oscar-nominated Edward Norton have detailed solo appearances, but also “Logan-The Wolverine”-Bösewich Boyd Holbrook as a country icon Johnny Cash.

Despite such moments when other figures sometimes move into the center for a short time, in the end it is definitely clearly the film by Timothée Chalamet! The “Dune” star has prepared itself for the role for several years (!) And not only learned instruments, but also traveled various places that are important for the life of the folk legend. He works with the same coaches that Austin Butler has already prepared for his part as Elvis Presley in order to speak and sing as the real model. Such stories traditionally inspire Oscar voters, but a biopic is not automatically succeeded in just because the main actor is similar to his model on the outside and vocal. And indeed: Despite all the legitimate praise for Chalamet, who really impressively embodies Dylan's charisma and stage presence, he also does not manage to let us look behind the musician's dark sunglasses.

The mystery is also not ventilated this time

We always experience Dylan as a self -related ass who cheats his girlfriend, underestimated his fans at the concert or looks down on Seeger after he has become more successful than his former sponsor. But “Like a Complete Unknown” sometimes gets stuck in the representation of the external facets of this complex personality-also because Mangold and his co-author Jay Cocks (“Gangs of New York”) are always a little too dutiful and Bieder Biographical stations in the story Insert, which otherwise convinces with their omissions and sudden leaves. One wishes that there are more scenes in which the characters simply exist instead of still having to convey something (over) clearly.

But there is admittedly a complaint at a very high level. Because whenever a length threatens to sneak up, the captivating game of the cast or the next music appearance will tear you up again. Incidentally, these also protrude staged: the songs were recorded live during the shooting instead of being retrofitted in the studio. So they sound rough instead of polished and thus give the entire drama the necessary barren that make “Like a Complete Unknown” so fascinating despite all the superficialities.

Conclusion: “Like a Complete Unknown” is a rousing biopic that convinces with strong performances and grandiose staged music scenes. Even if the film does not reach the depth of Todd Haynes' “I'm not there” and is often content with the mere reproduction of biographical stations, James Mangold ensures an atmospherically dense and excellently played musician drama. In particular, Timothée Chalamets Intensive representation as well as the rough, live songs recorded live and the great line -up make the film worth seeing – even if Bob Dylan remains a mystery in the end.