Dylan Goes Electric, Chalamet Goes Method

The brown corduroy jacket catches my eye first. Not Chalamet's performance, not the period Greenwich Village streets, but this one jacket that appears in three scenes and each time it's buttoned differently, worn differently, like it's aging with Bob or maybe Bob's aging into it. Brown corduroy in winter New York. Who makes that choice?

Actually, wait. The jacket isn't the point.

James Mangold demonstrates his expertise through his work which brings both comfort and letdown because I hoped the film would either completely collapse or achieve something beyond typical music biopic standards. The game delivers a dependable gaming experience which sometimes produces exciting moments.

The actor spent five years mastering guitar and harmonica for this part and his dedication becomes apparent through his performances although it sometimes makes him appear overly conscious of his hand movements. The film picks up Dylan in 1961, guitar case in hand, seeking out a dying Woody Guthrie in a New Jersey hospital. The stage at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival became his platform to play his Stratocaster which produced such powerful music that it hypnotized half of the audience.

The approach Mangold takes involves making Dylan an unlikable character. The film commits to showing him as prickly, distant, occasionally cruel to Elle Fanning's Sylvie, who deserved better than being someone's muse-slash-emotional-punching-bag. Dylan delivers the line "I don't owe you anything" to her with such coldness that it creates an uncomfortable feeling which lasts throughout the following ten minutes.

Monica Barbaro's Joan Baez gets the better material though, this competitive-collaborative energy that never quite settles into romance or rivalry. She observes his performance while her mind works to evaluate him through a mix of admiration and resentment and desire. The costume designer dresses her in tight wool dresses which create a sense of limitation compared to Dylan's relaxed clothing style while their body language reveals their relationship better than most spoken words. Boyd Holbrook shows up as Johnny Cash for about fifteen minutes total and commits so hard to the drawl and the pills and the darkness that he nearly steals the whole thing.

(Can we talk about Edward Norton as Pete Seeger for a second? He plays him like someone's earnest socialist grandfather which, fine, maybe accurate, but also makes every scene between them feel like Dylan's disappointing his dad at Thanksgiving.)

The color grading does most of the heavy lifting emotionally. Everything before Dylan goes electric feels brown-grey-beige, muted documentary tones. The Post-electric stage produces brief intense red and blue lighting effects which create a violent atmosphere. The change becomes obvious to everyone. The entire content lacks any refined or delicate elements.

The ending just sort of happens. Dylan plays Newport, people boo, people cheer, he walks off. Credits. Five years of guitar lessons for that.