Better Man | Bouquets & Brickbats

17/01/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Writer/director James Mangold has been down the music biopic route before with 2005’s Walk The Line (featuring Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash), but the news that he was planning a film about Bob Dylan felt like a decidedly tall order. After all, Robert Zimmerman is the proverbial mystery wrapped up in an enigma, a man who has unabashedly invented (and reinvented) the details of his own story from the very start of his career. It’s to Mangold’s credit then, that A Complete Unknown is such a triumph, eschewing the idea of a ‘whole life’ depiction and choosing instead to focus on five turbulent years from the musician’s life.

it’s 1961 and a twenty-year-old Dylan hitchhikes from his home in Duluth, Minnesota to Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in New Jersey, where folk legend Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairie) is slowly succumbing to the ravages of Huntingdon’s Disease. Guthrie is Dylan’s hero and he has come here to sing to him, as song he’s written all about the man. Present at the impromptu performance is Guthrie’s friend and fellow folk stalwart, Pete Seeger (Edward Norton). He’s impressed both by the song and the performer’s confidence, so he takes Dylan under his wing and starts introducing him to the flourishing folk scene in the coffee houses of New York City.

It isn’t long before his regular appearances start to gain him a reputation. At one concert he meets Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning, a thinly disguised version of Dylan’s real life muse, the late Suze Rotolo), and the two of them become lovers and constant companions. He also meets folk singer Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), already something of a star on the folk circuit. Baez covers some of Dylan’s songs and helps to bring his work to a wider audience, and inevitably, a romantic entanglement ensues between them.

And then, Dylan begins to tire of the strictures of the folk scene and finds himself increasingly drawn to the trappings of rock music – the fashions, the poses, the volume. But he is to discover that folk puritans are opposed to sullying ‘their’ music with electric guitars and keyboards. It becomes clear that the transition won’t be an easy one to make…

These days, I am by no means a Bob Dylan fan, but I did follow him during the mid sixties and have always held a soft spot for Highway 61 Revisited – which, coincidentally, is the album around which this film reaches its climax. In the lead role Timothée Chalamet is quite simply astonishing, offering a performance that goes beyond the realms of mere impersonation. He actually performs all the songs and plays guitar on them. (A post screening Q & A tells me that he didn’t play the instrument before this film, but had the opportunity to work on his character for five years and figured he might as well go all-in). Co-star Barbaro had barely sung a note before she landed the role of Joan Baez, but she somehow nails the woman’s unique vocal style effortlessly.

And then of course, there are the songs, each one indelibly memorable and delivered with enhanced power at this IMAX screening, so that the film’s two hour plus running time seems to positively flash by. Dylan, as portrayed by Chalamet, is a whole contradiction of characters, by turns vulnerable, scheming, hard bitten and amorous, sneering, vindictive, reckless and determined. Of course, Chalamet has been nominated for an Oscar and, should he be successful, then it will be well-earned.

A Complete Unknown is a remarkable achievement, a film that captures the era in which it’s set with absolute veracity and which chooses to focus on one of the most important moments in music history. It’s fascinating to watch it unfold. (Okay, so a few small details have been tweaked – that infamous cry of ‘Judas!’ occurred at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, not the Newport Folk Festival, but it matters not one jot.) This is a movie to enjoy on the big screen with the best sound system available. After the recent financial failure of the brilliant Better Man, I’m reluctant to speculate on what this film might achieve at the box office, but for my money, it ticks all the boxes.

It’s a musical feast. Dig in.

5 stars

Philip Caveney

01/01/2025

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Our first cinema trip of 2025 is to see a film that actually came out last year – Boxing Day to be precise. A further complication is that this would certainly have made our list of the best films of 2024 had we managed to squeeze it in a day earlier. No matter. Better Man is brilliant and I have every reason to believe I’ll still feel as strongly about it when it comes time to compile this year’s selection.

Pop biopics can be tricky beasts. You can play it straight like Bohemian Rhapsody, you can evoke a multi-layered fantasia, as in Rocket Man – or you can go for a balls-out, head-scrambling slice of pure invention, which is what Michael Gracey (of Greatest Showman fame) has done with the life story of Robbie Williams. I should probably add here that I’m not a rabid fan of Williams and his music (though Angels has long been a go-to for me on the rare occasions when I get to do a bit of karaoke). Had I not picked up on early rumours of this film’s delights, I would probably have let it slip under my radar.

It’s hardly a spoiler to mention that Williams doesn’t even appear in his own biopic, apart from singing his best-known songs, but is instead portrayed by a CGI generated ape, mo-capped by Jonno Davies. This device is a stroke of genius, highlighting Williams’ sense of alienation, while also removing all worries of an actor not looking enough like the real man. Somehow, the metaphor renders many of the resulting scenes incredibly moving.

We first encounter our hero as a cheeky little monkey, living in a humble home with his mum, Janet (Kate Mulvany), his beloved gran, Betty (Alison Steadman), and his fame-obsessed dad, Peter (Steve Pemberton) – a pound shop Frank Sinatra, who heads off to seek his own fortune when Williams is just a boy. His son spends the rest of his life seeking his old man’s approval.

At the ripe old age of fifteen, fame unexpectedly beckons when Robbie auditions for a place in a new boy band being set up by would-be pop impresario Nigel Martin Smith (Damon Herriman). Against all the odds, he makes the cut – though it’s clear from early-on that he and the other band members are merely there to act as backup to Smith’s prodigy, Gary Barlow (Jake Simmance). As Take That embark on a punishing schedule of appearances around the UK’s gay clubs, it soon becomes clear that Robbie is having trouble handling the pressures of fame…

On paper, this may all sound straightforward enough but, as reimagined through Gracey’s mindset, the film is a collection of exhilarating, exuberant and occasionally devastating set pieces: there’s a wonderfully playful dance routine through the streets of London set to Rock DJ; a swooning waltz between Robbie and Nicole Appleton (Raechelle Banno) on the deck of a ship; and, best of all, a raucous rendition of Let Me Entertain You at Knebworth, which quickly escalates into an epic battle between Robbie and hordes of his inner demons. The film never flags but steps deftly into each successive interpretation with perfect timing. I keep having to stop myself from applauding.

Williams has been criticised for dishing the dirt on actual people, but it should be said that the person who comes in for most of the criticism is Robbie himself, often acting up like a spoiled brat with too much money in the bank. Viewers should be warned that the film is unflinching in its treatment of mental illness and self-harm. A funereal sequence set to the aforementioned Angels is particularly affecting and I don’t mind admitting that I view it through floods of tears.

One last thing: I know I say this far too often but, for the full effect, do see this one on the big screen. It’s a fabulous piece of filmmaking that effortlessly oversteps the relative simplicity of its subject to create something genuinely spectacular. And even if you don’t care one jot for Robbie Williams’ music, this one will still hit you in the feels.

5 stars

Philip Caveney