In February 2024, I wrote in my review of Maestro: “Every year, I watch all ten nominees for the Best Picture Oscar, which means that every year, I have to spend a whole evening watching somebody impersonate a musician.” Well, here we are again. A Complete Unknown takes us to the 1960’s folk scene to teach us…nothing too interesting. That Bob Dylan was a very good musician, I suppose. And that Timothée Chalamet is a good actor (although this latter statement lands, in my opinion, less convincingly). If you’re a devoted fan of either person, you’ll probably enjoy this movie, but even then, idol worship only goes so far toward dramatic entertainment: the movie climaxes with Dylan’s decision to use an electric guitar at a concert—a watershed moment, apparently, for the music industry, but a pretty humdrum one as far as cinematic payoffs go. These types of movies are made for people who don’t like movies, and I do, so I’ll never be their intended audience. Contextualize my thoughts accordingly.
–Jim Andersen