Film Reviews & Movie Analysis

This Oscar nominated movie, charts the life of musician Bob Dylan. From his rise as a folk singer, instrumental in giving the genre a global platform, to rebelling against the very thing he helped build. However, despite the popularity this movie has gained during the 2025 awards season, it isn’t made for everyone.

Credit where credit is due. Chalamet was completely transformed as the charmless Bob Dylan. The slow gander of his walk, the assured way he played guitar and the recklessness of his bike riding showed a complete command of character. A stand-out in Chalamet’s performance is how he conveyed two distinct points in Dylan’s life; before the cloying claustrophobia of fame, and his rebellious turn away from folk music.

Despite her inconsistent screen time, Monica Barbaro made an impression as the moody poster woman for folk music, Joan Baez. Her performances gave a voice to the condescending side of Dylan’s personality. There is a brilliant, scene where Dylan tries to take Baez’s guitar – a show of his lack of respect for her and their relationship. Baez puts her foot down. She snatches the guitar away from Dylan, gripping it tightly after he leaves. This moment really drew a line under the dynamic of their relationship.

One of the best scenes in A Complete Unknown takes place at the Newport Folk Festival, where Bob Dylan performs The Times They Are A-Changin’  for the first time. The build up to this moment and the engagement from the audience and Dylan’s peers is a great turning point. It highlights the sweeping popularity of Dylan’s music and foreshadows the fame coming his way.

I think it’s important for you to note that I don’t really know who Bob Dylan is. I’ve heard of him, but I couldn’t name you a single song or pick the guy out of a line-up. I mention this because one of the biggest failings of A Complete Unknown, is that it relies too much on the audiences, awareness of Bob Dylan. A lot of key moments in his life are touched on in this biopic, but none of it is unpacked with much explanation.

The movie touches on Dylan’s musical heroes and his past. Dylan’s rise to fame, his activism, and his vocal denouement of segregation. These are brief scenes that randomly slot into the narrative. You either blink and you miss it, or it takes you out of the story completely. I was flummoxed when I saw Dylan meeting Martin Luther King Jr. It seemed like a key moment in Dylan’s career and an emphasis on the influence of his music. Unfortunately, there was no build up or clear link to this moment. Instead, I was left distractedly wondering how they superimposed Timothée Chalamet into a meeting with Martin Luther King Jr.

Another example of the movie showing us moments without explaining them is in the case of Dylan’s relationships with the pragmatic Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning), and fellow folk artist Joan Baez. One, Dylan, loves but cheats on, and the other he doesn’t love but keeps going back to – and for the life of me I couldn’t work out why. There is no verbalised reasoning for Dylan bouncing from Sylvie to Joan, which made it difficult to care about the women or the infidelities.

What I was supposed to care about was Bob Dylan’s music. However, even that took me by surprise because this principle narrative arc only became evident in the last 30 minutes of the movie.

I was disappointed with A Complete Unknown. I hoped to have learnt something tangible I could take away about the musical legend Bob Dylan. I wanted to be swept away by his music and feel inspired by the boundaries he pushed over the decades. I wanted to walk out of this movie and say; Bob Dylan. Yeah, I get it. Sadly, I could not. This film wasn’t made for someone like me in mind. The people who laud this movie are those that know about the life of Bob Dylan and can fill in the wide gaps this surface level movie ignores.

A Complete Unknown was nominated for Best Picture at the 2025 Oscars, with a nod to Timothée Chalamet for Best Actor.