The short version: to paraphrase Siskel and Ebert, two very enthusiastic thumbs up, and I'm looking forward to seeing it again soon. The occasional (minor) anachronism/chronological inaccuracy notwithstanding, this is both a first-class evocation of some never-to-be-repeated watershed events in pop/political cultural history, and a surprisingly sophisticated psychological exploration of what made an artistic genius tick. Plus it's just a hell of a lot of fun.
More specifically, I should add that the performances are stellar throughout; Timmy and Edward Norton (as the film's conscience, elder folk legend and mensch Pete Seeger) are the obvious (deserved) Oscar-bait, but I was also particularly surprised by and taken with Elle Fanning, who's wonderful in the thankless role of Suze Rotolo, the Sixties counter-culture's most celebrated real-life ex-girlfriend. I should also add that the art-direction/period detail throughout is itself worth the price of admission; in particular, the first-half evocation of Greenwich Village in the early '60s is going to induce many dropped jaws in anybody who was around at the time or who simply has an affection for that historical moment.
The music? Well, older readers may recognize today's title as a play on the advertising tagline for Broadway's Beatlemania, the cheesy 70s musical that essentially invented the phenomenon of the modern tribute band, and thus has much to answer for. I must admit that, along those lines, I was way skeptical going into A Complete Unknown. I mean, just what the world needs, right -- a Zimmerman repertory act; at best it would be tacky, and at worst, an unintentional evocation of the much-missed (and hilarious) Bob Dylan Impersonator's Contest they used to hold annually at the old Speakeasy club on MacDougal Street.
Well, I was wrong; when the film's recreated music is at its most successful, i.e. when Chalamet is center stage, it's across-the-board riveting and dead-on believably convincing -- with the exception of the sonic ambience of the applause in the early coffee house scenes (which for some reason sounds inappropriately huge, as if lifted from the audience audio feed at a Taylor Swift arena show) and for the otherwise terrific performance of Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, who, probably wisely, makes little attempt to duplicate the sui generis folk-angelic vocals of her real-life character.
Bottom line: If you doubt me on this, take a listen to Chalamet doing a certain Dylan classic you may be familiar with (from the forthcoming movie soundtrack album, BTW).
I don't know about you guys, but to me that sounds both eerily accurate and quite ineffably moving.
Two final caveats: I gotta say, I kind of feel sorry for my long-time hero, keyboardist Al Kooper, whose character shows up, briefly, in the second half of the film, limned by actor Charlie Tahan, who does't look a goddamned bit like him. And speaking of ahistorical -- I was kind of shocked to realize that nowhere in any of the film's Village scenes is it suggested, either by Mangold or co-screenwriter Jay Cocks, that New York University is an actual living organism that is, at this very moment, growing inexorably leftward towards America's West Coast. 😎
Which leads us to the rest of the business at hand. To wit:
...and your favorite or least favorite bio-pic of a rock era solo musical artist or group is...???
No arbitrary rules this time; hell, if you want to nominate 40s stuff like The Jolson Story or that Cole Porter bio with Cary Grant (you know, the one where Cole isn't gay), go for it.
Anyway, in case you're wondering, my faves are the 2010 The Runaways (Kristen Stewart brilliant as Joan Jett)...
...and the 2007 What We Do Is Secret, with Shane West also brilliant as the late Germs frontman Darby Crash.
Alrighty then -- what would YOUR picks to click be?
And have a great weekend, everybody!!!
