A Complete Unknown ★★★★

WHETHER you’re a fan of Bob Dylan’s music or not, his impact on a generation of people can’t be denied.

Watching the new biopic A Complete Unknown you realise the days of musicians who changed the world for the better are few and far between.

Dylan, Springsteen, Bowie, Marley, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, all had widespread, lasting and multi-generational impacts.

The beauty of A Complete Unknown is that it’s as much about the influential music and social change that Dylan helped foster as opposed to just being about the man himself.

It’s set during the period from the early to mid 1960s starting with Dylan’s arrival as a young but gifted unknown singer and songwriter.

Content and comfortable with being a solo acoustic performer, Dylan is discovered by Pete Seeger, mentored and introduced into the folk music scene where he quickly becomes a crowd favourite.

Slowly, under the influence of the two women in his life, Dylan starts to write and perform more meaningful and political songs that eventually put him front and centre of the protest movement that sweeps through the younger generation.

And then, just when Dylan and folk music seem to have fused to power an extraordinary influence and popularity, the eclectic, taciturn and fiercely individual Dylan chooses to introduce electric guitar and an experimental edge that puts him at odds with his folk music peers and traditional fan base.

Chalamet gives one of those performances that seems to fully embody the person he is portraying in every facet, including vocal ability.

Elle Fanning is also very good as Sylvie Russo, the on-again, off-again love of Dylan’s early life who urges him to take is music to another level.

Equally good are Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash and Edward Norton as Pete Seeger.

James Mangold directed and co-wrote the film which has received eight well deserved Oscar nominations.

Watched at the cinema.