Timothee Chalamet stars as enigmatic singer-songwriter Bob Dylan during his formative years on the folk scene in the early 1960’s.
Musical biopics are a tired film genre. Stories about the tiredness of the genre are kinda tired, too. But some background is needed before I plunge into my take on A Complete Unknown, writer-director James Mangold’s film on the legendary Bob Dylan. My film critic brethren and I thought the 2007 film Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story likely put the final nail in the musical biopic coffin. It was a satirical skewering of every rags to riches (and drugs to rehab) trope that finds its way into these films. It so thoroughly poked fun at the entire genre it was difficult to imagine a production company putting up the money to make another one.
But, it’s a beast that can’t be killed. Since that film lampooned the genre seventeen plus years ago, we’ve had the late, great Chadwick Boseman as James Brown in Get on Up (2014), Paul Dano and John Cusack as young and older Brian Wilson in Love and Mercy (2015), Rami Malek carrying home an Oscar as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), Taron Egerton as Elton John in Rocketman (2019) and Austin Butler receiving an Oscar nomination for his turn as Elvis in the 2022 Baz Luhrman film of the same name.
With the release of A Complete Unknown, a biopic set during four tumultous formative years in the career of shape-shifting songwriter Bob Dylan, movie goers can decide which is harder to kill: the musical biopic or a Nosferatu? The good news for movie lovers who hide from family in a dark theater during the holidays is both films are entertaining examples of their genres.
