For decades, we have attempted to find the words to describe Bob Dylan and his work. Some view him as one of the most important musicians of the 20th century, others as the absolute voice of his generation. Terms such as “poet” and “revolutionary” rarely linger too far behind in any conversation about his legacy – and yet, he somehow still seems too deeply ambiguous and difficult to understand, primarily because he has never quite allowed himself to be the kind of public figure who lends himself to much scrutiny, remaining quite enigmatic over the decades. Attempts to comprehend his life and career have been made over the years, including in Todd Haynes’ masterful I’m Not There, which was often viewed as the definitive account of his legacy, primarily because it chose to present him through the perspective of half a dozen different actors, rather than merely as a single entity. This experimental approach was certainly ahead of its time. However, wherever we find the conventions being challenged, tradition isn’t lagging far behind, as made evident by A Complete Unknown, in which James Mangold returns to the musical biopic genre to tell the story of Dylan’s formative years, following his arrival in New York City as a penniless young musician from Minnesota, right through to his rise to fame throughout the 1960s, ascending to become one of the most influential songwriters and musicians of the decade and someone who changed the course of the medium in many different ways. Mangold, who had previously dabbled in this genre in Walk the Line twenty years ago, follows many of the same conventions that we would expect from such a film, which ultimately proves to be quite a middling effort, both in terms of the themes that it explores and how these ideas are executed, neither of them being particularly remarkable or notable in any discernible way, and instead feeling like yet another middle-of-the-road biographical drama frankly afraid to take any risks, and ultimately squandering the potential it had in theory, especially when working with the story of arguably the most important American singer of his generation, and one who warranted something much more than this lacklustre effort.

One can argue that a film like A Complete Unknown didn’t need to exist, solely because we are all aware of Dylan and his influence, so it is essentially taking up space in telling us information we all already know. It’s a reductive sentiment (and one that isn’t entirely accurate). Still, it does point towards the fact that he is an enormously influential artist and someone whose life is interesting enough to warrant a film, especially in how his career started. We often look at Dylan as an island, a solitary figure who built himself up in isolation, but the truth is that he was deeply indebted to several other artists, many of whom are portrayed throughout this film. Without the likes of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, he would not have been inspired to write such poetic music that simmered with social commentary and deep emotions, with some of his earliest work being designed to be responses to their work (one of the most touching scenes in the film comes when an unknown Dylan visits Guthrie in hospital and performs “Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie” for the dying folk music pioneer), and then later collaborations with fellow musicians like Joan Baez and Johnny Cash, or other artists such as his muse and girlfriend NAME, all influenced Dylan and essentially set him on the path to achieve greatness. A Complete Unknown is at its most interesting when it looks at how Dylan’s genius was not innate or sudden, but rather a gradual mosaic drawn from innumerable influences, each one being a fragment that contributed to his artistic identity, and to which he owes an immense credit, as does every artist who achieves some degree of success. We don’t need to be reminded of his genius, but rather being allowed to peer behind the curtain and see the people who make an impact in his life does lend itself to some genuinely interesting commentary, especially when combined with the backdrop of the 1960s, a fascinating era in which American culture was radically changing, with Dylan unquestionably being one of the foremost pioneers of the entire movement in several different ways.

Based on even the briefest cursory glance, it is clear that A Complete Unknown has the foundation to be a great film, or at least one with a lot of promise – and yet, it doesn’t live up to even an ounce of this potential, with the exception of a few solid moments where it feels like it is doing something compelling, which are sadly few and far between. The main issue here is that it is essentially two films in one, and cannot decide between which one it wants to pursue. The original plan for the film (at least in the early stages) was to be based around Dylan’s period of transitioning between musical styles, usually referred to as his “going electric” era, which was a very divisive moment in his career, and one that reflects a lot of changing perspectives around culture and art at the time. Yet, this aspect of the film only occupies the final hour, with the previous 80 minutes being dedicated to the other half, which was following Dylan as he moves to New York City and interacts with various artists (including several of his inspirations), rising from a struggling singer to someone extremely influential. Taken in isolation, either of the two halves would have made a fantastic film all on its own, but instead of choosing one approach and developing it to be a detailed, meaningful account of a particular period in his life, A Complete Unknown instead compresses them together as some sprawling account of the entirety of the 1960s, which makes it extremely rushed and forces it to lose all focus, falling apart at the seams once it becomes clear that it quite simply cannot hold the weight of all of this material. We’ve moved past the point of the cradle-to-grave biography (at least in the traditional sense), but yet Mangold uses the exact tropes usually associated with these conventional biographical films as a crutch, hoping that the reputation of the subject would be enough to compensate for the bizarre narrative elisions and liberal approach to his story. Taking two very good ideas that could work as films on their own and placing them together without even bothering to rectify the enormous disconnect between them is deeply unfortunate and one of the many aspects of this film that indicates just how lacking in vision it is, and quite frankly makes it extremely dull, since this is an approach we’ve seen countless times in the past, and which has been proven to be extraordinarily outdated and completely unconvincing.

It is very clear that A Complete Unknown has some glaring flaws that it struggles to overcome, and one area in which it could have remedied its narrative deficiencies was in casting the central roles with the right actors. A film like this could have benefitted from a more obscure, lesser-known actor who was able to inhabit every aspect of Dylan’s life and career, disappearing into the role and essentially acting as a parallel to the subject’s own life. Naturally, the decision was ultimately to cast Timothée Chalamet, arguably the most famous actor in his age group and someone who has often yielded criticisms towards his supposed lack of versatility and tendency to play into the same set of hackneyed techniques when it comes to portraying any character. There is never a moment in this film where it feels like we are watching anything other than Chalamet in period-specific clothing doing a middling Dylan impression, regardless of how much effort went into the performance. To his credit, Dylan is not an easy person to imitate considering his biggest cultural cache is in his art rather than his public persona, which is quite subdued in comparison to some of his contemporaries, meaning that there wasn’t much for the actor to draw from when developing this performance. Nevertheless, its difficult to not be disappointed with this portrayal – Chalamet does his best, but there’s just not enough effort put into the film for him to shine, especially since so much of the focus is put on replicating the musical numbers (which are solid, and he does quite well in recreating Dylan’s singing voice), but the scenes that surround these moments, where we are given supposed insights into his personal life, are beyond lacklustre, with the subject being portrayed as somewhat immature and bratty, and whose hostility to both the industry and his fans makes him quite an unlikable character and doesn’t do an ounce of justice to his remarkable legacy. Amongst the supporting cast, not many of the other actors fare much better – Edward Norton is wholeheartedly committed to his performance as Pete Seeger, but he’s not well-utilized (an entire film could have been made about his friendship with Dylan, and both actors would have been far more compelling had this been the case), whereas Elle Fanning is outright wasted, whereas Monica Barbaro makes the legendary Joan Baez into an unintentional villain. A Complete Unknown is the kind of biopic that hopes that the viewer will be invested enough in the story that we’d overlook the poor characterization, but these shortcomings weigh the film down beyond any salvation.

Cinema is always evolving, and while some may find the idea of a traditional bread-and-butter biographical drama appealing, we’ve moved past the point where such a limited perspective is enough to capture our attention, and we find that A Complete Unknown, while certainly competent enough, is far from worthy of its subject matter, and proves to be quite ineffectual in most of its attempts to honour Dylan’s career and legacy, neither of which are done any great service by this relatively lacklustre film. There didn’t need to be a film about Dylan’s ingenuity or influence as an artist, especially one that presents such a surface-level analysis, almost as if it expects the audience is be introduced to him for the first time – but even if was intended to act as an introductory text to Dylan’s life and work, it is quite bland in how it doesn’t show any of the nuance or poetry in his work, instead relying on a couple of electrifying musical numbers and a few iconic costumes to convey the sense that this is an exceptionally influential artistic, rather than doing the work to explain why he is seen as this generational, defining talent. Mangold is not much more than a director-for-hire that earned a respectable reputation in Hollywood at a time when journeyman filmmakers were being positioned auteurs, and while he is reliable and can deliver solid projects, he is also far from exciting, and A Complete Unknown only highlights his lack of vision, since it isn’t only a by-the-numbers biopic, but also deeply bland and lacking in any real substance, rarely amounting to anything other than a one-dimensional account of Dylan’s life, structured as a compilation of his greatest hits with a few mediocre domestic interludes inserted in between, culminate in a 140 minutes of dull, conventional storytelling that isn’t even compelling enough to be considered reliable, and instead has to settle for the bare minimum in an era where it simply isn’t enough to rely on conventions to tell such a story. The only good to come out of this film is that it will likely renew interest in Dylan’s music and impel the audience to revisit his work, but we certainly did not need a lengthy, mediocre biographical drama to remind us of his brilliance.