Film Talk: The Tims they are a-changin' - Chalamet gives us his best Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown
He’s the boy wonder who can apparently do anything – and now he’s taking on the role of one of music’s favourite sons.
I’ve waxed lyrical before about my love for the world-breaking talent of Timothée Chalamet. He took Arrakis by storm with Denis Villeneuve’s first two Dune flicks, brought the world’s favourite candy man back to life in true Gene Wilder-style with Wonka, and (at the tender age of only 23) gave the performance of anybody’s lifetime with Beautiful Boy.
Now 29, Chalamet is stepping into the biggest shoes he has yet attempted to fill, with hotly-anticipated Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown. Of course, our boy Tim will be far from the first star to have portrayed the ‘Blowin' in the Wind’ legend on the silver screen. A triumph of the noughties, Todd Haynes’s experimental biopic, I’m Not There, actually cast six different actors as Dylan. Thanks to just this one flick, Chalamet will be following Christian Bale, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw and an absolutely spellbinding Cate Blanchett into Bob’s big boots. Pressure? Maybe, for mere mortals. But not for T-Chal.
Along for the ride in A Complete Unknown are Elle Fanning, Ed Norton and Boyd Holbrook, playing Sylvie Russo, Pete Seeger and Johnny Cash respectively. Director James Mangold certainly hasn’t been shy about packing this one with plenty of star punch, though it’s with leading man Chalamet where the buck stops.
It took six Hollywood heavyweights to capture the essence of the enigmatic Bob Dylan back with I’m Not There. Can Tim the Titan do it all on his lonesome? There’s little doubt that, between folk fans and ‘Chalamaniacs’, cinemas across the land will be bursting at the seams this weekend as audiences rush to see whether this one was worth all the hype. Come gather ‘round, people… It’s time to see if Challers pulled it off, or if this one was beyond even his command.
A COMPLETE UNKNOWN (UK 15/ROI 12A, 140 mins) ****
Released: January 17 (UK & Ireland)
The tantalising air of mystery that once shrouded celebrities and made them untouchable has almost entirely evaporated thanks to voracious tabloid journalism and intrusive 24-hour social media.
Eighty-four years young in 2025, singer-songwriter, painter and poet Bob Dylan remains a perplexing puzzle of his own design.
As the title of director James Mangold’s handsomely composed biographical drama intimates, A Complete Unknown salutes an enigma without completely exposing the multi-faceted man behind the myth.
As depicted by Mangold and co-writer Jay Cocks, Dylan ruthlessly pursues his own agenda at the expense of personal relationships and is succinctly described as “a mysterious minstrel” by his first girlfriend because he shares nothing of substance with her.
Another partner angrily throws him out of a hotel room because he only covets her company as inspiration for a new song.
Timothee Chalamet is scintillating as Dylan, singing live and playing various instruments to embody a roughly hewn creative genius, who bristles at the trappings of fame and courts deafening boos at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival by daring to perform with a band playing electric guitars.
He devours every frame, trashing friendships with those who aid his ascent, including Edward Norton’s awestruck mentor. As unlikable as Dylan becomes – girlfriends call him some choice names – Chalamet’s virtuoso dive into the dark waters of an unapologetic rabble rouser compels us to hold our breath too.
Nineteen-year-old Bob Dylan (Chalamet) arrives in wintry 1961 New York to visit his idol, Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), in self-imposed convalescence with Huntington’s disease at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital.
“I want to meet Woody. Maybe catch a spark,” Bob explains to Pete Seeger (Norton), who is also visiting the musician.
An impromptu acoustic performance of a song that Bob has written for Woody propels his star into the ascendancy. Pete invites Bob to stay with his wife Toshi (Eriko Hatsune) and their children until the prodigy finds his footing. An open mic at Gerdes Folk City in Manhattan’s West Village introduces Bob to singer Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), seeding a turbulent romance that repeatedly undermines his relationship with girlfriend Sylvie (Elle Fanning).
Dylan leverages his newfound celebrity to spotlight sociopolitical themes in his music and he takes to heart the words of fellow firebrand Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook): “Make some noise, BD. Track some mud on the carpet.”
A Complete Unknown politely tracks mud over the 1960s folk scene in which Dylan operates as a poster child and an agitator.
Chalamet’s transformative, idiosyncratic performance harmonises beautifully with Fanning and Barbato as the young women frustrated by his aloofness and disregard of their needs.
Early in the film, Pete counsels Bob: “A good song can get the job done without any frills.” Mangold’s picture plays a tune of artful simplicity.
WILLIAM TELL (UK 15/ROI 15A, 133 mins) ***
Released: January 17 (UK & Ireland)
Early 14th-century Swiss folk hero Wilhelm Tell has been repeatedly memorialised on the page and stage most notably in Friedrich Schiller’s play and Rossini’s subsequent opera Guillaume Tell, both of which fixate on the title character being forced to shoot an apple off his son’s head using a crossbow.
Writer-director Nick Hamm’s sweeping film version opens in 1307 with the striking image of a freshly plucked apple trembling atop the head of young Walter Tell (Tobias Jowett) as his marksman father, William (Claes Bang), prepares to shoot the fruit clean off the boy’s noggin from 100 yards.
Failure or refusal to fire will render the title character childless, success will spare the lives of the close-knit Tell clan at the hands of bloodthirsty Austrian interlopers.
Before the predestined miracle shot, Hamm’s script rewinds three days to trace tragic events that preface this demonstration of aerodynamic excellence.
For the next two hours, we gallop between an array of characters whose fortunes collide on the battlefields of Switzerland, repelling soldiers loyal to Sir Ben Kingsley’s elaborately eye-patched Austrian tyrant.
Bang’s war-weary and dour embodiment of the title character is persistently at odds with the rollicking, old-fashioned yarn that Hamm and his creative team clearly aspire to make.
While horseback riders charge into briskly choreographed battle sequences and Connor Swindells’ lip-smackingly boo-hiss antagonist sinks his teeth into every inch of scenery, Bang solemnly professes resilience (“We learn our lessons in failure”).
The disconnect between the stoic and gloomy title character and other facets of this mud-spattered action adventure is distracting.
In flashback, we witness King Albrecht (Kingsley) dispatch sadistic Viceroy Gessler (Swindells) to extinguish pockets of rebellion in Switzerland, intimating that a potential union with his spirited niece, Princess Bertha (Ellie Bamber), may be the reward for success. She is nauseated by the prospect of sharing a marital bed with a chauvinistic brute.
Anti-war hero William (Bang) proves a persistent thorn in the side of Gessler and the Austrian invaders.
Tell protects a peasant, Baumgarten (Sam Keeley), from swift justice for murder and joins his wife Suna (Golshifteh Farahani) and son Walter (Jowett) in the fierce rebellion led by good friend Stauffacher (Rafe Spall), holy man Furst (Amar Chadha-Patel) and Bertha’s secret Swiss paramour, Prince Rudenz (Jonah Hauer-King).
William Tell is an impressively staged throwback to gung-ho historical romps of yore, punctuated by protracted battle sequences accomplished using practical and digital effects.
Bang’s sombre freedom fighter is a square peg forcefully hammered into the round hole of Hamm’s expansive vision, miraculously rousing the downtrodden masses into a chest-beating uproar of steely defiance. Swindells’ lascivious, snarling villainy is far more compelling.
WOLF MAN (UK 15/ROI 16, 103 mins) ***
Released: January 17 (UK & Ireland)
Leigh Whannell, director of The Invisible Man, helms a contemporary reimagining of the werewolf horror thriller co-written by Whannell and Corbett Tuck.
Blake (Christopher Abbott) inherits his childhood home in rural Oregon after his father vanishes without trace and is officially declared dead.
He persuades wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) to travel from San Francisco to visit the property with their young daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth).
The family arrives at night and an unseen animal attacks the clan in their moving truck, forcing Blake, Charlotte and Ginger to barricade themselves inside the vacant home.
The beast circles the residence and inside, Blake begins to behave oddly, forcing Charlotte to make split-second decisions to protect their daughter and herself.
HERE (UK 12A/ROI 12A, 104 mins) ***
Released: January 17 (UK & Ireland, selected cinemas)
Director Robert Zemeckis and actor Tom Hanks previously collaborated on Oscar-winning tearjerker Forrest Gump, Cast Away and The Polar Express.
The creatives reunite for a technically ambitious drama adapted from Richard McGuire’s graphic novel, which imagines millions of years of life in one location on our planet.
