A Complete Unknown: Boring, Yawning, Sloppy

A Complete Unknown is an irksome and painfully dull story about some guy from Minnesota who doesn't respect women or his managers. 

Rating: 3.0/10

Highlights

• Timothée Chalamet

• Amplified Dylan's musical significance for a new generation

• Pleasant setting of the 1960s

Lowlights

• Dylan is a horrible character

• Way too much music

• Too long with little plot

Between its failure to teach any real history and frustrating narrative, A Complete Unknown is a slog of a movie that only succeeds to bolster the self-absorbed and shallow personality of Bob Dylan. The single redeeming aspect of the film is Timothée Chalamet's performance — the labor he underwent to prepare for this role was quite evident, and he perfectly emulated Dylan. Beyond that, however, the film was aggravating. Director James Mangold claims A Complete Unknown endeavored to tell the story of the introduction of the electric guitar into popular culture and folk music, but we learn nothing helpful about this. Instead, the film shows Dylan being uncaring towards people in his life without any real consequences, which is frustrating. The movie can be summarized as such: Dylan is talented, Dylan is a womanizer and nothing but a total jerk to several women, Dylan wants to play rock 'n roll and some people in the industry are mad. The end! I wouldn't waste your time with this film. If you're anything like me, you'll leave feeling frustrated and overwhelmed by the amount of mediocre Dylan cover songs, and wishing you'd just watched Rocketman for the twelveth time instead.

Liked A Complete Unknown? Go watch Better Man, which is actually an original and engaging biopic of another vintage singer.

Watch the trailer!