A new film starring the usually dreadful Timothée Chalamet is always something to be wary of. Here he stars as Bob Dylan in yet another musical biopic. Thankfully, rather than covering his whole career, writers James Mangold (who also directs) and Jay Cocks concentrate on a four year period. It starts in January 1961, when he moves from Minnesota to New York City, and concludes at his notorious 1965 concert at the Newport Folk Festival, when he controversially used electric instruments.
Whilst, I cannot claim to now be a Chalamet fan, he is much better than usual, even if it feels more like an impersonation than a performance at times. In fact, it is the cast that provide one of the main reasons for seeing this. Elle Fanning does a great job with an underwritten part of his on-and-off (fictional) girlfriend, Sylvie. Monica Barbaro is good in a meatier part as Joan Baez, and best of all, is Edward Norton as the lovely Pete Seeger. The other reason, is of course, the music and Chalamet’s recreation of those songs, during Dylan’s creative high-point, is where he excels.
The screenplay, though, is a let down. Not only is it filled with glaring inaccuracies: Dylan was accused of being a “Judas” at a gig in Manchester, not at Newport, for example. It has quite a few, embarrassing, on the nose moments, such as Bob seeing the Cuban Missile Crisis on TV and immediately writing and performing Masters of War. Incidentally, Mangold uses the very annoying trope of having characters glued to TV news shows for momentous events, and this is long before rolling news channels.
Enjoyable enough but I did not feel like I knew the man any better at the end.
Rating: 6.5 out of 10