Skip to main content

Review: A Complete Unkown (2024)

 Day 4 Of Oscars Week! This post will contain spoilers.

A Complete Unkown


Summary

    A Complete Unknown tells the story of Bob Dylan's (Timothée Chalamet) first few years of his career. Starting with his arrival in New York City. He meets Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) and Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) who see potential in him. He meets other artists such as Joan Beaz (Monia Barbaro) and political activist Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning). He rises to fame, playing folk festivals and begins to navigate a world where people know his name. 

    As Dylan stays in the spotlight for folk music, he begins to want to switch genres to something more electric. The general response to this is negative, however, Dylan doesn't seem to care. The film ends with the Newport Film Festival where Bob Dylan debuts new songs with an electric guitar to an unhappy audience. This marks the pivot made in his music career and a historical event for folk music. 

Rating 
Rating: 8/10
    It's not a film I'd usually watch, but I did enjoy it.

The Tiny Details

    I want to start off by acknowledging that Biopics are not my thing, I would not have watched this if it wasn't Oscar nominated and watching the film didn't change my mind. That being said, I liked it. I got a little bored at times, but I think that's because I'm me. I'm also not an avid Bob Dylan fan but his life story is absolutely fascinating. His determination to pivot away from folk music because he wanted to go in a different direction was honestly inspiring. I did a lot of research on this movie while writing this because I was interested how much of this was stretching the truth. As far as I can tell, the film made some speculation with specific dates and exaggerated a few scenes but most of it was truth. 

    As for Timothée Chalamet, I really liked his portrayal of Bob Dylan. A whole separate rant I could do is about how I think that Timothée Chalamet should do more comedies but if he wants an Oscar first, fine. I think this could be it, he just portrayed Bob Dylan so well and I can see why Bob Dylan himself thought he would be completely believable. 

My Favorite Character

    My favorite character was Slyvie Russo, I always appreciate an activist for rights in films set in the 1900s. Elle Fanning was just great, I think I'm biased because I love everything she does. Slyvie could be described strong, independent, decisive and when her and Bob Dylan went separate ways, I was upset that I'd no longer see her. 

Best Quotes

3) "Judas" - Heckler

I thought someone yelling this at Bob Dylan when he didn't sing his folk music at the festival was hilarious. The fact that this actually happened makes it so much better. 

2) "They say no one wants to hear a song some kid wrote last month" - Bob Dylan

The music industry has always been so controlling over its' artists when they start out. Pointing out in this film how the music industry treats young artists hasn't changed in decades was really important to me. 

1) "whatever it is they don't want me to be" - Bob Dylan

They used this in the trailer, and it just encapsulates the entire film so well and it's the quote that stuck with me after the film was over. 

A Playlist?

Since this is a biopic about Bob Dylan, I can't add anything to the film that isn't already in it or related to it. I thought the music was great as is and doesn't need a playlist inspired by it.

Oscar Nominations

Best Picture: Overall, this was a good film to me, I have no objections with it's nominations

Best Director: I really liked his choices and reading articles where he commented about how he changed the film were really interesting

Best Actor: This is my first choice for best actor, was my favorite performance out of the nominees

Best Supporting Actor: I enjoyed Edward Norton's performance as Pete Seeger, I think this was deserved

Best Supporting Actress: instead of Monica Barbaro, I wish it was Elle Fanning. Again, biased but I didn't pay too much attention to Joan Baez in the film, I did really like her singing though 

Best Adapted Screenplay:  It was good, deserves a screenplay nomination

Best Sound: I thought the sound was good

Best Costume Design: I liked the clothes; I thought the way that Bob Dylan's clothing style changed through the film as he changed. I hated the final outfit Elle Fanning wore before getting on the boat.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: High School Musical 2

 While I've never seen the third one, usually I will choose to watch the second one over any of the three, this post will contain spoilers! High School Musical 2 Summary      The summer in between junior and senior year is happening and Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale) and Ryan (Lucas Grabeel) Evans are going to relax at their family's country club while the rest of their peers' search for jobs. Sharpay still wants to be with Troy Bolton (Zac Efron), so she has him offered a job at the club, naturally he also helps all his friends, and girlfriend, Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens) get jobs there as well. Sharpay tries to steal Troy away by giving him many gifts while tossing her brother Ryan to the side. Troy has to decide between accepting Sharpay's gifts and keeping his friends. One Sentence Review Rating: 6/10 While slightly better than the first, the movie is still not all that great.  My Thoughts      When people ask me about this film, which isn't often, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Scream (1996)

 I recently rewatched Scream, one of my favorite movies so I figured it would be a great first review! Also, this will definitely contain spoilers after the review section so if you haven't seen it and you don't want spoilers only read the first two sections! Summary       Scream takes place in Woodsboro, California, and is centered around Sydney Prescott.  The town is hit by a string of murders, the targets being the teens of Woodsboro High School surrounding the anniversary of Sydney's mother's death (absolutely a coincidence). Sydney quickly becomes the focus of the investigation and the target of the killer. This film is a fantastic mix of comedy and thriller and an iconic 90s film. Scream is almost 2 hours long and directed by Wes Craven (other notable work includes Nightmare on Elm Street and The Hills Have Eyes) One Sentence Review Rating: 10/10  I absolutely love this film because of the way it blends horror with comedy as a parody of a horror movie...
Post a Comment
Read more

About Me

 Sup! I don't know too much about blogs, so this is going to be a fun journey. A friend of mine had a book vlog a while back and I wrote for that once and it was pretty fun. I'm always told I don't know when to shut up about the film and to start a blog so I can bother people online about it. I love music, basically, all genres. Some of my favorite artists include Taylor Swift, Conan Grey, Queen, Lady Gaga, Fall Out Boy, and Keith Urban. Reading is also a big hobby of mine; Six of Crows is my favorite book, but I also love The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and The Hunger Games. One of my favorite things to do is to sit down and enjoy a nice movie or a couple episodes of a TV show before bed, but I don't really have people to talk about it to in extreme detail, hence the blog. My plan for this vlog is like an informal layout of my thoughts on films that I watch.  I watch everything from comedies to dramas to science fiction to documentaries. However, my favorite genre is...
Post a Comment
Read more