NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Entertainment

A Complete Unknown review: Timothee Chalamet embodies Bob Dylan’s once-in-a-generation coolness

By Robbie Collin
Daily Telegraph UK·
11 Dec, 2024 08:11 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Check out the A Complete Unknown trailer for the Bob Dylan biography drama distributed by Searchlight Pictures. Video / Searchlight Pictures
Review by Robbie Collin
Robbie Collins is the chief film critic for The Telegraph.

REVIEW

The rocker is too mercurial a figure for a biopic to ever fully capture him – but this gorgeous film comes as close as you could hope.

When Walk the Line sauntered into cinemas in 2005, no one could have foreseen the havoc it would go on to wreak. James Mangold’s life of Johnny Cash pinned down the rock-star biopic recipe so precisely that the recipe itself just looked like ludicrous cliche in its wake. So almost two decades later – and with 2007’s Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story having spoofed the form so mercilessly in the interim, making the likes of Bohemian Rhapsody look even more cornily formulaic than they were – Mangold deserves no little credit for personally getting the genre back on its feet.

His new film about Bob Dylan’s rise to stardom is a dream – as accessible to newcomers as it is rewarding for die-hards, with a rivetingly lived-in central performance from Timothee Chalamet, a keen eye for immersive detail, and a gorgeously tactile, five-o-clock-shadow-rough surface.

Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan.
Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

And it only pulls this off because the whole enterprise feels fresh – though note that Mangold’s film, named after a lyric from Like a Rolling Stone, isn’t actually that wild or innovative. We’re not talking about Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis – one of the recent life-of-a-rock-god films to neatly sidestep the Walk Hard curse.

In fact, A Complete Unknown’s defiantly trad style does mean it struggles towards the end to capture the sheer shock value of Dylan’s controversial 1965 show at the Newport Folk Festival, where he performed with electric instruments and unveiled his new rockier sound.

Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash. Photo / YouTube
Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash. Photo / YouTube

But the secret to the rest is there was no secret all along. Mangold and his co-writer Jay Cocks have just simply looked at every stock scene and hackneyed line in the genre’s repertoire and avoided them all. Not every last one: there are the expected moments in which suits exchange greedy glances in the recording studio, and song lyrics sync up a little too neatly with biographical details. But for the most part, the film plays like a juicy rise-to-power drama rather than a scenic tour of an artist’s Wikipedia page.

It also boasts two unfussily terrific performances at its core. One is from the sure-to-be-Oscar-nominated Chalamet, who miraculously embodies the young Dylan’s once-in-a-generation coolness, genius and truculence. (He partly makes you want to worship him, and partly tear your own hair out, perhaps followed by his.) The cast all sing their own songs, and if there’s a problem with Chalamet’s voice, it’s that it’s slightly too good.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The other great asset is Edward Norton as Dylan’s sometime-mentor Pete Seeger, a folk-music pioneer and purist and founder of the Newport festival at which Dylan’s reputation was first minted, then melted down and re-cast.

Mangold frames each man as the other’s opposite: past versus future, precise versus spontaneous, transparent versus opaque. Yet the tension between them never snaps into rivalry – rather it vibrates away fruitfully, as tight and tuneful as a steel-string. Seeger hears tradition in Dylan’s work, but also its ferocious overturning – and Norton’s subtle expression of the older musician’s sadness and wonder at this is where the soul of Mangold’s film is rooted.

The rest of the supporting cast is largely made up of nicely judged famous-face turns, from Boyd Holbrook’s Johnny Cash to Monica Barbaro’s duskily charismatic Joan Baez, whose fling with Dylan (during his longer relationship with Elle Fanning’s Sylvie Russo, who turns the singer on to the power and commercial value of protest) leads to tensions on stage.

Perhaps Dylan himself is too mercurial a figure for a biopic to ever capture him completely – indeed, Todd Haynes’s I’m Not There gloried in the futility of the task. But A Complete Unknown comes about as close as one could reasonably hope.

Discover more

Entertainment

Dylan wins lawsuit over $430m sale of songs

01 Aug 03:47 AM
Entertainment

Bob Dylan's songs sold: The publisher is a-changing

07 Dec 05:13 PM
Entertainment

Star crashes his own lookalike contest

28 Oct 09:01 PM
Entertainment

Hollywood's crown prince earns more Oscar buzz

21 Nov 11:00 PM

A Complete Unknown is in New Zealand cinemas from January 23.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Entertainment

Entertainment

'I'm back baby': Lewis Capaldi returns to NZ for two special shows

06 Jul 10:00 PM
Reviews

William Dart review: Auckland Philharmonia's La Traviata impresses full house

06 Jul 05:00 PM
World

Ozzy Osbourne's final Black Sabbath gig draws thousands in Birmingham

06 Jul 02:09 AM

Sponsored: Get your kids involved in your reno

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Entertainment

'I'm back baby': Lewis Capaldi returns to NZ for two special shows

'I'm back baby': Lewis Capaldi returns to NZ for two special shows

06 Jul 10:00 PM

The Someone You Loved singer took a two-year hiatus to focus on his health.

William Dart review: Auckland Philharmonia's La Traviata impresses full house

William Dart review: Auckland Philharmonia's La Traviata impresses full house

06 Jul 05:00 PM
Ozzy Osbourne's final Black Sabbath gig draws thousands in Birmingham

Ozzy Osbourne's final Black Sabbath gig draws thousands in Birmingham

06 Jul 02:09 AM
NZ actress accuses Australian policeman of using CCTV to spy on her

NZ actress accuses Australian policeman of using CCTV to spy on her

06 Jul 12:48 AM
Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper
sponsored

Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP