A Complete Unknown (2024)

Timothée Chalamet spends 141 minutes as Bob Dylan, and by the end he’s as much of a mystery as when it started. That’s partly the point and partly the problem. James Mangold keeps to a tight window: Dylan hitchhiking into New York in 1961 to meet a gravely ill Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger taking him in, the folk scene falling for him, all building toward the 1965 Newport Folk Festival and the electric guitar everybody knows is coming. Chalamet does his own singing, recorded live on set, and he’s hypnotic, guarded and prickly until the music opens him up. Edward Norton is warm and quietly sad as Seeger, and Monica Barbaro holds her own as Joan Baez. The shape is a standard biopic, though, and it rearranges some real history to keep things tidy. It holds an 82% on Rotten Tomatoes. An 8.1 because the music is the story, and it sounds incredible. $15.52 says you put on Highway 61 Revisited before the credits finish and let it play all night.

What works: Chalamet’s live singing is electric, and the supporting cast, especially Norton and Barbaro, makes the folk scene feel lived in.

What doesn’t: It follows a familiar biopic shape, rearranges real events for drama, and never really gets under Dylan’s skin.

Who it’s for: Dylan fans, folk fans, and anyone who wants to hear these songs performed like they matter.