“And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall,” Timothée Chalamet belts onstage, his signature curly mop frizzed out on the top of his head. No, this isn’t his latest musical performance à la “Statistics” or Wonka. It is a scene from the official first trailer for the James Mangold-directed Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown. The much-anticipated film does not yet have an official release date, although Mangold has offered a hint at when to expect it in theaters. Here, everything to know so far.
Who is in the cast of A Complete Unknown?
Chalamet isn’t the only marquee act in the film. While he plays Bob Dylan, Elle Fanning stars as his girlfriend, Sylvie Russo (the director told Rolling Stone that Fanning’s character is a renamed version of Suze Rotolo, Dylan’s real-life girlfriend from that time period. Rotolo was featured on the cover of Dylan’s 1963 album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan). Monica Barbaro, of Top Gun fame, plays musician Joan Baez, with whom Bob Dylan had a long musical (and romantic) relationship. Edward Norton plays the folk singer and activist Pete Seeger. And Boyd Holbrook plays Johnny Cash—the subject of Mangold’s previously directed biopic, Walk the Line.
Elle Fanning and Timothée Chalamet as Sylvie Russo and Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown.
Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures
Folk singers Joan Baez and Bob Dylan (the real ones) perform during a civil rights rally on August 28, 1963 in Washington D.C.
Photo by Rowland Scherman/National Archive/Newsmakers
What is the plot of A Complete Unknown?
The film starts with Dylan’s 1961 move from Duluth, Minnesota, to New York’s West Village, where he created some of the best works of his career. The movie ends shortly after his legendary performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Along the way, the trailer suggests there will be a strong plotline concerning Dylan’s complicated relationships with Baez and Russo; the musician was historically known to be a womanizer. “[The movie is] certainly following Bob, but I’m much more interested in the wake that this person has left on others as much as I’m interested in unpacking who he is in some kind of conventional movie-Freudian way,” ” Mangold told Rolling Stone. “That’s why Elle’s character and Pete Seeger, Edward’s character, and Joan Baez, of course, and many others are more than just passing through in a kind of Hall of Presidents pageant. They’re significant players coming in and out of the movie. They all were instrumental in [Bob’s] journey in the years between ’61 and ’65, but they all also interacted with him in different ways that are prisms and keyholes to different aspects of who Bob might be.”
A still from A Complete Unknown.
Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures
Was Bob Dylan involved in A Complete Unknown?
Yes. According to the Rolling Stone article, Mangold met with the iconic singer-songwriter, now 83 years old, to consult him on the film. “The first time I sat down with him, Bob said, ‘What’s this movie about, Jim?’” Mangold told Rolling Stone. “I said, ‘It’s about a guy who’s choking to death in Minnesota, and leaves behind all his friends and family and reinvents himself in a brand new place, makes new friends, builds a new family, becomes phenomenally successful, starts to choke to death again — and runs away. ‘I like that,’” Dylan replied.
Is there a trailer for A Complete Unknown?
As of July 24, yes, a teaser trailer has dropped. Both Chalamet and Fanning posted it to their Instagram accounts.
Does A Complete Unknown have a release date?
While there’s no official release date for A Complete Unknown just yet Mangold hints that tit could be in theaters as soon as December 2024, ideal for holiday theater goers. “You can’t release a movie like this in February or March,” he added.