Details from IMDB:
2024 R 2h 21m
In 1961, an unknown 19-year-old Bob Dylan arrives in New York City with his guitar and forges relationships with musical icons on his meteoric rise, culminating in a groundbreaking performance that reverberates around the world.
In 1961, an unknown 19-year-old Bob Dylan arrives in New York City with his guitar and forges relationships with musical icons on his meteoric rise, culminating in a groundbreaking performance that reverberates around the world.
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- Stars
Initial Thoughts:
I missed this when it first came to theatres, fortunately as it was nominated for 8 Oscars Cineplex brought it back and I got to see it today. Ok I’ll admit, I didn’t bother to see it when it first came out because I was disappointed seeing Dylan in concert but really that’s a silly reason and I’m glad I changed my mind.
Main Points:
Timothee Chalamet is amazing here! I can see why he was nominated for Best Actor, and I really hope he wins in. While I’ve never met Bob Dylan, I’ve seen him in concert and seen him interviewed, along with some footage from a documentary on “We Are the World” and Chalamet just gets him perfect, with singing, looks, everything so precise. While I had a rough idea of Dylan’s early years, I had never known all of the details of how he became famous so quickly and how he rebelled against society/record labels/the public/conventional ideas.
I’ll get into what I said in the intro briefly, I saw Dylan and like millions of other people I was hoping he would do lots of his hits, he didn’t and I had been told he doesn’t do many hits but I didn’t believe it and went to the show with a false idea in my head. It’s the problem when reality doesn’t match up with a fantasy, you get disappointed and then mad at the person when I was the one wrong all along. That’s enough, the point is that Dylan is not like other singer/songwriters who are happy (or at least willing) to give you the hits every show, he is also the only singer to wear a Nobel Prize for Literature! Dylan is no question a genius and I think that many people with such a high IQ don’t fit in as well with society, they view the world so much differently and that can affect their behavior. This is addressed in the movie and it essentially means some people think Dylan is an asshole and I think something a friend of mine said many years ago is true, “sometimes everyone is an asshole!”.
Final Thoughts:
I’m not going to get into plot, it’s a great movie that speeds along, sweeping you up with the many things that happen during the 60s and the feelings of people who lived during that time. It was a pure delight to see more Johnny Cash, I thought Boyd Holbrook did a great job as him, and of course to hear lots of great Dylan songs. My hat’s off to Chalamet for this wonderful performance, he really makes the movie and the nearly 2.5 hour runtime was barely noticeable as I wanted more. I hope there is another movie about Dylan and there would only be 1 person to play him. If you haven’t seen this movie, go see it now! I give it a very solid 8.5 out of 10. One of my only issues was it was a little hard to hear what Dylan was saying sometimes, though that could have been an issue in the theatre. Please don’t let your kids see this, loads of foul language, a little violence and some suggestive scenes make it ages 18+, though to be honest I think it’s barely an R and would say ages 17+ in most cases. I really think this wins at least 4 Oscars, here’s hoping for more. James Mangold did a great job and is now the man for music bio flicks!