'A Complete Unknown' Isn’t Really About Bob Dylan

As impossible a task as doubling one of the 20^th century’s most distinctive figures might be, Timothée Chalamet largely measures up to it in James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown, which follows Bob Dylan from his arrival on the Greenwich Village folk scene in 1961 to his electrified performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. But there was one moment when I had to stifle a laugh. It’s when we get our first look at the 1965 Dylan, curly hair piled atop his head and a permanent sneer etched beneath his sunglasses, as he strides past his old folkie haunts, hops on his motorcycle, and roars off down MacDougal Street. After nearly two hours in the company of Dylan the sensitive balladeer, the abrupt leap into his sullen rock-star persona is a jarring one, and for the first time, Chalamet feels less like his character and more like the third-place finisher in a Bob Dylan look-alike contest, one who’s got the wardrobe down but can’t muster the mystique. But before the guffaw had left my throat, I realized something: He’s not meant to be pulling it off. We’re not buying this new version of Dylan, and neither is Dylan.