In partnership with Searchlight Pictures
It features a career-making Timothée Chalamet performance
At 29, Chalamet is one of his generation’s most exciting actors. When a shattering performance in 2017’s Call Me By Your Name landed him on the Oscar shortlist, he became the youngest man in 80 years to be nominated for Best Actor. He’s building Oscar buzz again for his turn as Dylan, for which he worked with the same experts who helped Austin Butler to capture Elvis Presley’s mannerisms and speaking voice. Incredibly, Chalamet and his co-stars sing and play their instruments live throughout the film.
You’ll witness a pivotal moment in rock history
The film begins with Dylan arriving in New York City in 1961. As the title suggests, he was a complete unknown – and a college dropout to boot – but also ambitious and incredibly talented. It then tracks Dylan to his legendary headline set at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, during which he performed with electric instruments for the first time. This musical innovation drew boos from the trad folk fans who felt he was betraying the genre’s roots. But it was also a defining moment in Dylan’s career that cemented him as a pioneer of the evolving folk-rock sound.
Dylan isn’t the only fascinating character
Seriously, the supporting cast is stacked like a six-part harmony. Edward Norton plays Pete Seeger, the seminal protest singer who championed Dylan’s early career – and Boyd Holbrook (The Bikeriders) portrays country icon Johnny Cash. Look out, too, for Scoot McNairy (Speak No Evil) and Monica Barbaro (Top Gun: Maverick) as the influential folk singers Woody Guthrie and Joan Baez. When you factor in Elle Fanning as Sylvie Russo, Dylan’s artist girlfriend in the film, you have a truly evocative snapshot of the 1960s American counter-culture.
The director has form when it comes to biopics
A Complete Unknown is directed by James Mangold, who previously made 2005’s Walk The Line about Johnny Cash. That film was a box office smash that picked up five Oscar nominations, including a Best Actress win for Reese Witherspoon. More recently, Mangold directed Matt Damon and Christian Bale in the Oscar-nominated Le Mans ’66, which dramatised the famous 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans race. An Oscar nominee in his own right, Mangold knows how to handle legendary figures.
Because you do like Dylan, really
Even if you’re no Dylan disciple, you’ve got to respect his seismic cultural impact – after all, he’s the only musician ever to receive the Nobel Prize In Literature. And you probably like more Dylan songs than you realise. He’s penned a succession of modern standards from 1965’s revolutionary rock single ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ to 1973’s gospel-flecked ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’. At the very least, it’s hard not to admire a seasoned troubadour who’s been travelling the globe since 1988 on his ‘Never Ending Tour’.
‘A Complete Unknown’ is in UK and Ireland cinemas January 17