Peneflix MOVIE REVIEWS BY PENEFLIX
Movie attendees have been feted to a plethora of exciting biopics in recent years: “Bohemian Rapsody” (2018) Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury, “Rocketman” (2019), Taron Egerton, is Elton John; “Judy” (2019) Renne Zellweger’s portrait of Judy Garland; “Elvis” (2022) Austin Butler, reigns as the “King”. Awards galore were showered upon these iconic performances. But in my experience, there has never been a performance of such dynamism as Timothee Chalamet’s as Bob Dylan (1940-) in “A Complete Unknown”. It has taken me weeks to process this film; never being a Dylan fan it was overwhelmingly confounding to analyze the effect the film had on me. How one man’s heuristic acuities opened avenues unexplored by himself but redolently blossomed allowing him to transform into a folk artist/singer, guitar and harmonica enthusiast; it is cloning at its precipice and Chalamet is nonpareil.
Directed by James Mangold, dedicated to the integrity and gritty talent of iconoclastic Dylan (still very much alive and working) but just as respectful to Dylan’s icons: Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger (Edward Norton gives a genuinely dignified depiction of Seeger’s reputation and kindness); Elle Fanning as Dylan’s major youthful partner “Sylvie”, was the weakest link in the film contrasting with Monica Barbaro’s electrifying performance as Joan Baez.
During my “A Complete Unknown” hiatus I researched the man, more than his timely tunes of which he wrote over 500 and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, he was a painter, welder; he converted me when he wrote in his book “The Philosophy of Modern Song” that “one should go and see an Opera, and the drama leaps off the stage even if you don’t understand a word. When the language is obscure feeling becomes the mode of connection”. Dylan’s spirituality resonates throughout his songs and life; now, because of Chalamet’s consummate skill, Dylan’s inimitability, sensitivities, messages, resonate and are “blowin’ in the wind, the answers are blowin’ in the wind.”
FOUR & ½ STARS!!!!
Peneflix
