You Got Nothing to Lose — A Complete Unknown

William J Hammon
9 min readJan 16, 2025

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If there’s one thing about my upbringing for which I’ll be forever grateful, it’s that my mother raised me on great music. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and while I certainly found my favorites in those sets (my first “jams” were Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again” and Guns ‘n Roses’ “Paradise City,” for example), my education was in the “classics” and “oldies” that formed the basis for rock and roll, especially as the genre rose to its peak in the 70s. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Elton John, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, Bruce Springsteen, The Four Tops, Joni Mitchell, Aerosmith, Eric Clapton, Cat Stevens, and many, many more were my teachers. By learning about them and playing their records (and eventually cassettes and CDs) on repeat, I gained an appreciation for instrumentation and lyricism that led to my teenage and adult loves of the likes of Green Day, Paramore, The Struts, Foo Fighters, Oasis, Gary Clark, Jr., and even opened the door to other forms like rap, as its rise involved a lot of cross-pollination and collaboration, introducing me to the likes of Run-DMC, Dr. Dre, Eminem, and more.

Part of the reason I often criticize modern pop music is because of its mass-produced nature that promotes branding and sexuality over actual artistry, and shows little to no knowledge or awareness of the skill that came before. That’s not to say that everything should be derivative or reverent by any means, but when it’s clear that image and marketing matter far more than talent, I can’t help but feel like something crucial is missing, and I get super annoyed when people accept it at face value and insist that I do the same. I’m fun at parties.

Anyway, my point is that I will always be thankful that mom exposed me to all this stuff, because it helped me to understand the passion and emotional honesty of true musicians. Perhaps none was more crucial to that sense of maturity than Bob Dylan, a poet and a sage who has an almost unequaled skill in distilling the American experience into words that are alternately simple and profound, and reducing the entire thing to a matter of minutes. To hear him put into rhyme all the desires, frustrations, and wisdom of an entire generation — lessons that remain relevant today for anyone who cares to listen — is to almost escape the bonds of reality and flirt with the divine. That he’s been doing this consistently for over 60 years is nothing short of miraculous, and his unwillingness to compromise his artistic integrity is seen by musical purists as an ideal to which all should aspire.

It’s that steadfast commitment to self that pervades the latest biopic about Dylan, A Complete Unknown, directed by James Mangold (who has among his more impressive credits the Oscar-winning Walk the Line, so you know he’s handled this kind of material before). A committed crowd-pleaser from beginning to end, there are times when things might feel a bit too polished and straightforward to properly represent Dylan’s life and catalog, especially considering I’m Not There or any of the other dozen or so films and documentaries about his career. However, the core concern and motivation of Dylan’s quest for full creative freedom is given proper weight, presenting viewers with a more traditional look at a very non-traditional man, and one that is unceasingly engaging and entertaining.

Based largely on Elijah Wald’s 2015 book, Dylan Goes Electric!, the film’s focus is entirely on Dylan’s formative years in the New York folk music scene, up until his controversial (for the time) decision to play electric guitar at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Played excellently by Timothée Chalamet, from the very first moments, you can see the overarching thesis of Dylan as a man set on his goals while at the same time being eternally frustrated at life’s hassles, starting with him making his way to New York from Minnesota in an attempt to visit his idol, Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) in the hospital after Huntington’s Disease took away most of his motor skills. Bob gets all the way to Manhattan only to learn that Guthrie’s in New Jersey, and he laments the extra 20 miles he’ll have to go, even though he just traveled over 1,000.

With nothing but the clothes on his back and a guitar, Dylan makes it to the hospital, where he meets his hero, along with Pete Seeger (Edward Norton). He plays a song he wrote in Guthrie’s honor, and both legendary musicians are instantly taken with the 19-year-old wunderkind. Seeger invites Dylan to stay with him and his wife Toshi (Eriko Hatsune), bringing him along to gigs so that he can give the young man his chance in the spotlight. He gets that opportunity at an open mic night at a small club where Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) is the headliner. Again his penchant for mildly irritating commentary comes through, as he both compliments Baez and needles her about possibly being “too pretty” to sing folk songs properly. This gets the attention of Albert Grossman (Dan Fogler), who had been attempting to sign Baez to his label, and he instantly jumps on Dylan, taking him on as the potential “next big thing” in music.

Dylan adopts a bohemian lifestyle, performing wherever he can and writing lyrics when the mood takes him. At a church performance, he meets Sylvie Russo (a stand-in for Suze Rotolo; Dylan specifically requested that her real name not be used in the film), played by Elle Fanning. They begin a relationship, with “Sylvie” being fascinated by Bob’s musical style and tall tales about his past, and Bob enjoys her revolutionary spirit while also being steady and grounded. As his star rises, however, it becomes clear that they can’t make it work, and Dylan begins a torrid affair with Baez while Sylvie’s away on a school trip. The more famous and successful he becomes, the more experimental his music gets, incorporating synthesizers and organs, police whistles, and most blasphemous of all (to the 1960s folk community, at least), electric guitars.

All of a sudden Dylan finds himself being pulled in several different directions. Seeger and his ilk want him to remain a traditional folk singer. Baez and Grossman want him to be as commercial as possible, albeit for different reasons (Baez believes he should cater to his legions of fans while Grossman just sees dollar signs). Sylvie wants him to be more open and honest about his past and be more assertive about playing his own music rather than covers. Then there’s the Man in Black himself, as Dylan begins a friendship with Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook) where the latter is always there as the devil on the former’s shoulder, granting Dylan permission to just do whatever feels right to him in the moment. To Dylan, music is freedom, and every action he takes in relation to these influences is geared towards that end. Sometimes he comes off brash, bratty, and pompous, but it’s all in service of getting to that all-important stage (literal and figurative) where he sets his own rules rather than playing by someone else’s.

First and foremost, the performances are terrific across the board. Chalamet nails Dylan’s voice and mannerisms, as does Barbaro playing Baez. Norton gives perhaps his finest performance since 25th Hour or American History X as the avuncular Seeger (if there’s one bit of characterization I didn’t like, however, it’s when the script turns Seeger into an antagonist that he never was). He’ll likely get a nomination for Supporting Actor, and it will be well earned. Even Elle Fanning elicited an emotional response or two, convincing me for the first time that she can act, something her sister Dakota has still failed to accomplish. Even more impressive than line deliveries or physicality is the fact that unlike the more highly-touted musicals of 2024, the actors sing live on set and play their own instruments. Chalamet himself performs about 40 different songs, and learned guitar and harmonica for the occasion. That’s an incredible level of dedication and immersion, and it comes across perfectly through the screen.

Several other production elements are superlative as well. The cinematography, editing, and sound design are all top notch, as is the production design and costuming. A particular highlight for me was the makeup, which sadly did not make the Academy shortlist. In a clever bit of design, the HMU team went to great lengths to make their leads appear as close to their real-life counterparts as possible, while also blending in small details that hint to other pop culture analogs. For example, Chalamet’s hair is done exactly like Dylan’s at the time. It’s wild and untamed, but there’s an awareness of how Chalamet himself looks, and that hairstyle, combined with his smile and eyes occasionally gives off a vibe of Billie Joe Armstrong, a wry hint at Dylan’s somewhat punkish nature. On the flipside, Norton is made up in a way that expertly resembles Pete Seeger, but the makeup, along with some of the wardrobe choices, implies something of a Mister Rogers motif. It’s possible that none of this was intentional, but I couldn’t help but notice, and it certainly enhanced my experience.

As I said earlier, if there’s one aspect that might rub some viewers the wrong way, it’s the fact that this is a pretty standard-issue musical biopic. We get the creative genius, the journey of self-discovery, the romantic entanglements, some haughty arguments, an evolution of the musical profile, and a triumphant performance to cap everything off. Given Dylan’s iconoclastic nature, this may seem like something of a betrayal. And yeah, there are some moments that are certainly trite. But even within the formula, you can find key moments where Mangold (along with co-writer Jay Cocks, who among his more well-known works can count Gangs of New York, Silence, and the opening text crawl to Star Wars) deviates from the norm. No better is this illustrated than the climactic performance at Newport, where the “victory” is only for Dylan as an artist living on his own terms. He defiantly plays through “Maggie’s Farm” and the rest of his set as if the entire show is just for his own ego, and it certainly feels that way, as the audience boos, calls him “Judas,” and throws shit at him.

It’s not meant to be a swelling moment of musical euphoria, but a statement of reckoning. This is Bob. This has always been Bob. You take him or leave him, but he’s always going to do his thing his way. That sort of contrast mostly redeems the more by-the-numbers plotting. Some may be disappointed that there aren’t any deep, penetrating secrets revealed about Dylan’s success or the man behind the legend, but that’s sort of the point. When people ask him who he is, he directs them to his music, because that’s his identity. All the answers are there, even the ones that contradict themselves. So Chalamet, Mangold, et al simply give us the music and its creator’s perspective, and let us make up our own minds from there.

The real success of the film isn’t in telling the world how awesome Bob Dylan was and continues to be. It’s in portraying the passion for music that only the greats truly possess, and that shines through despite the film’s flaws. To wit, when I saw the film on Christmas Day, as the credits began to roll, the original album cut of “Like a Rolling Stone” (the track whose lyrics give the move its title) started playing, the third such occurrence in the overall picture of the song. In the crowded theatre where I sat, the members of the audience, ranging in age from 20–80, all started singing along, to the point that the chorus became full-on karaoke, and there was playful disappointment that the song cut off after it rather than playing out in its entirety. That’s a communal experience you rarely get at the cinema these days, and one that demonstrates my earlier point about pop music. Thirty years from now, no one is going to sit in a theatre to a Britney Spears biopic and spontaneously break out in a loving rendition of fucking “Toxic.” There’s nothing wrong with liking that stuff, but it is inherently artificial because of how it was made, and it simply lacks the soul and intensity that true artists inspire. Dylan has done that for decades in a manner that almost feels effortless, and while A Complete Unknown revels in its attempts to render the master as unquantifiable, that crowd knew exactly who he is, and they loved every second of it.

Grade: A-

Join the conversation in the comments below! What film should I review next? What’s your favorite musical biopic? Have you ever been in a theatre that suddenly burst into song just from pure emotion? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) as well as Bluesky, and subscribe to my YouTube channel for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network at btrpmedia.com!

Originally published at http://actuallypaid.com on January 16, 2025.

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William J Hammon
William J Hammon

Written by William J Hammon

All content is from the blog, “I Actually Paid to See This,” available at actuallypaid.com

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