Music biopic focusing on Bob Dylan at 19, when he arrived in New
York City in 1961 to start his meteoric rise to become one of
music’s most influential singer-songwriters, culminating in the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016.

The city was just settling into its role as a nexus for the budding
folk music scene, and the times were a-changin’. Bob was there
hoping to meet his idol, Woody Guthrie, then hospitalized. He got
in and proceeded to impress the folk legend, as well as his friend
Pete Seeger (a terrific Edward Norton), with a new song. He was
on his way, and James Mangold (Walk the Line, Ford v Ferrari) lets
the man’s story unfold slowly, focusing on the characters in his
life more than his music.

Timothee Chalamet goes deep to capture the moodiness, the
opacity and the genius, and does a fair impersonation. Even sings
good. But he stops tantalizingly short of disappearing into the
role. To be fair, though, who could? The other actors are equally
good, but I never forgot that they were acting.

At the end I felt no closer to the man than I was before (and I’ve
met him). Also, it oversimplifies things and plays fast and loose
with historical facts and situations, but that’s fairly common in
cinematic biographies. These are quibbles. It’s a masterful effort
and well worth seeing. But it’s apparently easier to celebrate a
mystery than it is to explain it. (141 min)