A Complete Unknown: Timothée Chalamet’s portrayal of Bob Dylan praised by critics

Timothée Chalamet has been praised by critics for his portrayal of Bob Dylan, in a new film biopic of the US singer-songwriter.

A Complete Unknown has already scored three Golden Globe nominations and is likely to be in the Oscars race in the new year.

The Guardian said Chalamet showed “amazing bravado” in his performance, while Empire said the actor is “superb” and his “musical talent is unimpeachable”.

But the Independent said the biopic itself “plays too safe” and Screen Rant described the “serviceable” film as a “fascinating yet frustrating” portrait.

A Complete Unknown is released on Christmas Day in the US, and 17 January in the UK.

Dylan himself has endorsed the film, although he had not actually seen it at the time he posted about it last week on X.

“Timmy’s a brilliant actor so I’m sure he’s going to be completely believable as me. Or a younger me. Or some other me,” Dylan said.

In her three-star review, the Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey said the film “takes a reverent stance to Dylan’s artistry, populated by technically accomplished musical performances”.

She said Chalamet’s voice “isn’t perfect, but it’s undoubtedly impressive”, adding the film is “shot with a real sensitivity to the emotional landscape of each track”.

The film is based on Elijah Wald’s 2015 book, Dylan Goes Electric!

Set in the early 1960s, it tells the story of Dylan’s rise to fame, and the conflict between his folk roots and his desire to expand his repertoire to include rock ‘n’ roll.

The friction is represented by the choice between his use of an acoustic and electric guitar, and Dylan’s lyrics gradually become bolder and more reflective of the world he sees around him.

The film climaxes with a famously chaotic performance at at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, where Dylan was booed by some members of the audience for playing an electric set with an amplified band.

Deadline’s Pete Hammond praised the film’s production design, costumes and cinematography, as well as its lead performance.

“At the centre of this all is a remarkable performance by Chalamet, who performs all the songs himself in astonishing and authentic fashion. There is no lip-syncing or blending of voices between actor and subject,” he noted.

“The music of course is worth the price of admission, but in Mangold’s hands fortunately there is so much more to add, thus making Bob Dylan a little less than complete unknown by the time the credits roll.”

The film also follows Dylan’s romantic relationships with two women in particular – civil rights activist Sylvie Russo (played by Elle Fanning) and folk musician Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro).

Screen Rant’s Mae Abdulbaki reflected: “I could understand both women more clearly than Chalamet’s Dylan. Behind his sunglasses and tight body language, Dylan remains elusive.

“The film is very much about an artist who doesn’t explain himself, and I have immense respect for that, but it also creates an emotional disconnect in narrative form. It was as though I was watching a series of events that I couldn’t bring myself to care about. That’s what Mangold risks by keeping Dylan out of reach.”

There was a rave review from the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw, who awarded the film five stars and praised Chalamet’s “hilarious and seductive portrayal”.

“Interestingly the story, despite the classic music-biopic tropes that Mangold did so much to popularise, does not conform to the classic rise-fall-learning-experience-comeback format,” he said. It’s all rise, but troubled and unclear.”

The Times Kevin Maher was far less enthusiastic, awarding just two stars

“There will be audiences who will regard the recreation of Newport ’65 as a monumental cinematic event. But for many it will land with a giant shrug of indifference,” he noted.

“[Chalamet’s] performance is an unhelpful study in blank-eyed lockjaw minimalism, while his singing voice is fine if, occasionally, close to parody (but all Dylan imitators sound like parody).”

With an acclaimed back catalogue built up over seven decades, Dylan is best known for hits such as Blowin in the Wind, Mr. Tambourine Man, It Ain’t Me Babe, Girl From The North Country and The Times They Are a Changin’.

“Perhaps Dylan himself is too mercurial a figure for a biopic to ever capture him completely,” wrote the Telegraph’s Robbie Collin in a four-star review. “A Complete Unknown comes about as close as one could reasonably hope.

“For the most part, the film plays like a juicy rise-to-power drama rather than a scenic tour of an artist’s Wikipedia page.”

Elsewhere, the Evening Standard’s Nick Curtis joked the film made him “really, really want to learn to play harmonica”.

“It’s a defiantly unlikeable performance, miles away from Chalamet’s romantic leads,” Curtis noted.

“He captures Dylan’s craning stance and the way he used hair and sunglasses as a mask, the insistent buzz and keen of his speaking and singing voice and the odd, touchy, insularity.”

A Complete Unknown also stars Edward Norton and is directed by James Mangold, the filmmaker behind Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line and films in the X-Men and Indiana Jones franchises.

The Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney added: “Commendably, neither the movie nor the actor sugarcoat the abrasiveness of a creative genius whose insensitivity toward people close to him often stands in stark contrast to the humanity in his songs.”

“That detachment leaves something of a hole where the emotional centre should be in the screenplay by Mangold and Jay Cocks. Making a film about an enigmatic subject is inherently challenging and the writers deserve credit for declining to try to solve the mystery of Bob Dylan, even if that also risks making them seem incurious.”

Empire’s John Nugent concluded: “Frustratingly, for a story about a poetic genius, it struggles to find something fresh to say.

“There is some interesting stuff about the burden of talent… But by 1965 he is almost always behind sunglasses, his enigma calcified.

“The film doesn’t claim to understand Dylan, and suggests Dylan might not understand himself, either. That title, it seems, is literal.”