A Complete Unknown

My wife attended Manchester university in the 1960s, and, as those who were alive then will know, students of that period were very influenced by all the flower power, peacenik nonsense which dominated much of the contemporary culture. I, on the other hand, left school at 16, and lived in the real world!

As a consequence she liked, and likes, Bob Dylan, whereas I can't stand him, so our views of this film are very different. The kind of pretentious drivel that Dylan, and those around him, are known for is intensely irritating to those of us who know just what eventually happened to the Haight Ashbury hippies, and also how so many of their private lives showed them to be hypocrites, something one often finds when dealing with virtue signalling liberals, who pretend to be so morally superior in the abstract, but very different in their treatment of individuals actually known to them.

This film portrays Dylan as treating the women in his life badly, while being ungrateful in his dealings with those, such as Pete Seeger, who helped in begin his ascent of the ladder to fame. I find it incredible that he should have received the Nobel Prize for Literature, joining true greats like Winston Churchill, but perhaps it is not surprising, given the sort of awards the Nobel hands out, as for example to Barack Obama, when he had hardly got his feet under the table in the Oval office.

As far as the quality of the film is concerned it will be well received by those who like Dylan's droning delivery, and the main actors, Timothee Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning and Monica Barbaro are excellent, particularly as Chalamet actually sang the main songs. However his delivery of the lines was very unclear, as he seemed to regard it as being necessary to emulate Dylan's mumbling style of speaking in spoken dialogue.

It may very well be that the film is unfair to Dylan, but, unless one is a fan of his music, I would not recommend it.