A COMPLETE UNKNOWN 15

Despite being one of the greatest singer-songwriters of the last 60 years, Bob Dylan has always been tricky to pin down - indeed, he has often shed his creative skin, moving between musical styles and hating labels. This superb biopic (directed by James Mangold) focuses on the four years from Dylan’s arrival in New York as a ‘complete unknown’, through his folk period in Greenwich Village, and then into his global fame and (crucially) his embrace of the electric guitar, and culminating with the famous/infamous Newport Folk Festival when he blasted the stunned audience with Like a Rolling Stone, at full and electric volume. (In fact the film is partly based on a book by Elijah Ward called Dylan Goes Electric!)

Timothee Chalamet plays Dylan with a certain dead-eyed charm and he absolutely nails the voice, and he is very well supported by Edward Norton as Dylan’s folk mentor Pete Seeger, Elle Fanning as his girlfriend Sylvie Russo (based on Dylan’s actual partner at the time, Suze Rotolo), and Monica Barbaro who is superb as Joan Baez; their many duets have incredible chemistry. One of the themes of the film (and the subtext of the title), is that we never really get to know Dylan. What’s his back story? What motivates him? He is a mystery, even to those close to him. And perhaps that’s why he is still revered and indeed mythologised.

The Sunday Times gave it a five star review, with Tom Shone writing: “Chalamet reminds us what the fuss is about. Lanky, laconic, peering up at the world through long lashes like a certain People’s Princess, while delivering a startling rendition of Dylan’s nasal twang, Chalamet is in the zone: exasperatingly gifted, the actor is always at his best when he uses his callowness to add a touch of arrogance to the feckless prophets he plays — from Paul Atreides in the Dune films to Bob Dylan is not as much of a stretch as might first be supposed.”

A Compete Unknown is 2 hours 20 minutes long, plus an interval.