While watching a screening of the new Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” attended by the film’s star last week, I kept asking myself the same question. Who, exactly, is this movie for?

Two stridently different, yet equally deranged, fandoms will certainly eat up the film, which opens in theaters on Dec. 25. Hardcore Dylan acolytes will find much to love, and hate, about it as well as plenty of opportunities to endlessly complain and/or debate its finest of points.

Meanwhile Timothée Chalamet fans will adore the 28-year-old movie star’s intensely focused performance that seemingly came from the ABS — Always Be Smoking — school of method acting. (Director James Mangold has said the film is more of a Robert Altman-style ensemble piece than a traditional biopic, but Chalamet is front and center pretty much the entire time.)

I’m unclear, however, what the audiences who made smashes out of “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Rocketman” will think of this lengthy, ponderous film about an enormously gifted young performer who responds to his nearly instant fame by retreating into his own world and alienating the very people who lifted him up in the first place.

“A Complete Unknown” opens in January 1961, with 19-year-old University of Minnesota dropout Robert Zimmerman arriving in Manhattan with the plan to meet his musical idol, Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy). The first sequence is pure magic, as Mangold and his production team did a gorgeous job of recreating the New York City of more than 60 years ago. It’s always a pleasure to see a period piece that nails even the smallest of details. (Unfortunately, Mangold doesn’t maintain that level of commitment and used some particularly flimsy and garish CGI to fill out the Newport Folk Festival crowd scenes later in the film.)

As Dylan soon learns, Guthrie is actually in a psychiatric hospital in New Jersey, where he’s confined to his bed and struggling with a case of Huntington’s disease that has left him barely able to move or speak. Dylan makes his way to the hospital, where he meets another folk icon, Pete Seeger (Edward Norton), and performs a song for the both of them.

Seeger takes Dylan under his wing and introduces him to Greenwich Village’s booming folk scene, where he begins performing in clubs. After an enthusiastic New York Times review, Dylan picks up a record deal and a manager, Albert Grossman (Dan Fogler). A mere 14 months after his arrival, Dylan’s self-titled album hits stores.

From there, the film follows Dylan’s dizzying rocket ride to the top and concludes with his career-defining performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival when he stunned the audience by playing an electric guitar backed by a full rock band. Chalamet, who did his own singing in the film, doesn’t so much explain the enigmatic man he’s portraying as he does luxuriate in his many eccentricities. Still, Chalamet feels like a slam dunk for an Oscar nomination given his full bodied, all encompassing approach here.

Those looking for ties to Dylan’s home state of Minnesota won’t find much, beyond some early, minor intrigue about his actual surname of Zimmerman. There’s even a scene where Dylan’s girlfriend Suze Rotolo (renamed Sylvie Russo and played by Elle Fanning) berates him for not sharing anything at all about his life before New York.

Beyond Chalamet, the rest of the cast offer some memorable performances. Norton excels as the almost comically wholesome Seeger, while Fogler lands the perfect combination of charisma and sleaziness as Dylan’s manager. Boyd Holbrook makes Johnny Cash his own, a nifty trick given that Joaquin Phoenix did the same in Mangold’s 2005 Cash biopic “Walk the Line.” Even the smaller roles boast some great turns, like stage/screen actor Norbert Leo Butz giving indignant flair to folk music purist and field recorder Alan Lomax. (By the way, Butz is also fantastic in a completely different context as coach Bill Belichick in FX’s recent “American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez.”)

Both Mangold and Chalamet clearly aren’t afraid to show Dylan as a deeply flawed man, a chain smoking narcissist who treats everyone around him like garbage — especially the women in his life, especially Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro). Poor, poor Joan Baez.

And that brings me back to wondering just who “A Complete Unknown” is for. Yes, the acting is great, but the 141-minute running time does tend to drag. The back end gets particularly tedious with a number of repetitive scenes of uptight folkies clutching their pearls at the thought of Dylan playing rock music.

It’s tough to root for Dylan, and when he finally does plug in and crank it up, folks may be more excited by the fact that the film is finally over.

———

‘A COMPLETE UNKNOWN’

2.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for language)

Running time: 2:21

How to watch: In theaters Dec. 25

———

©2024 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit at twincities.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.