A Complete Unknown (15, 140 minutes). Verdict: A triumphant Bob Dylan biopic. Rating:. Bob Dylan fans will instantly recognise the title of James Mangold's splendid biopic, in which the great man is superbly played by Timothee Chalamet, as a line from Dylan's 1965 hit Like A Rolling Stone.
![[It could be, incidentally, that you don't think of Dylan as a 'great man'. Not everyone does. His voice has been described as 'a nasal, mumbling whine' and not all whines get better with age]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/11/09/93030989-14180957-image-a-5_1733909074826.jpg)
It could be, incidentally, that you don't think of Dylan as a 'great man'. Not everyone does. His voice has been described as 'a nasal, mumbling whine' and not all whines get better with age, yet at 83 he's still performing to adoring audiences. Bob Dylan fans will instantly recognise the title of James Mangold's splendid biopic, in which the great man is superbly played by Timothee Chalamet (pictured).
![[Many of his most ardent admirers, the self-styled Dylanologists, are at least as old as he is. Yet now they find themselves at the centre of a most unlikely Venn Diagram, interlocking with the so-called Chalamaniacs]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/11/09/93030991-14180957-image-a-6_1733909077828.jpg)
It could be, incidentally, that you don't think of Dylan as a 'great man'. Not everyone does. His voice has been described as 'a nasal, mumbling whine' and not all whines get better with age. Last month alone he played in Bournemouth, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Nottingham and Wolverhampton, before packing out the Royal Albert Hall for three nights.
![[Director and co-writer Mangold has crafted an absorbing film, which focuses on those few pivotal years between Dylan's arrival in New York City in 1961 as an anonymous teenage troubadour from Minnesota]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/11/09/93030987-14180957-image-a-7_1733909087036.jpg)
Many of his most ardent admirers, the self-styled Dylanologists, are at least as old as he is. Yet now they find themselves at the centre of a most unlikely Venn Diagram, interlocking with the so-called Chalamaniacs. These are (mostly young) people who worship Chalamet and I have seen great shrieking hordes of them in action, screaming his name while all but tearing their hair out in a state of rapture.
![[Dylan sleeps with Baez while living with his girlfriend (Elle Fanning as the thinly-disguised and long-suffering Suze Rotolo, here named Sylvie (pictured left)]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/11/09/93030983-14180957-image-a-8_1733909089214.jpg)
