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A Complete Unknown
A great film overall
I had no real expectations concerning this film. I just had a day off and decided to see this movie. There were only six of us in the theater, mostly “seasoned” people like me.
When the movie began, I was immediately engaged, immersed in the 1960s. Yes, the movie was not actually filmed in Greenwich Village (too expensive and gentrified now, I guess) but mostly in New Jersey.
However, everything was made to look authentic. I could actually feel the vibe, the same vibe I still felt when I first spent some time in New York in the early 1980s.
The Highlights
Live Music
The absolute highlight of the film was the music. The actors spent months learning to play the guitar, the banjo, and develop their singing. All the singing in the film was live.
Timothée Chalamet looks better and sounds better than Dylan ever did, and Monica Barbaro is lovely as Joan Baez and has a wonderful singing voice. Boyd Holbrook does a great impression of Johnny Cash.
The actor who really blew me away, however, was Edward Norton. I had been impressed with him in the Red Dragon and other movies but had never heard him sing.
