A COMPLETE UNKNOWN (James Mangold)
When you look back on the career so far of director James Mangold, you kind of know what to expect from him.
Over the course of 13 features from 'Heavy' and 'Copland' to 'Walk The Line,' 'Logan' and 'Ford Vs Ferrari/Le Mans 66,' he has delivered in the main robust, well written, well acted Hollywood films.
There's been the odd blot on the copybook - 'Knight and Day' and 'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny'.
However for the most part, he has been a pretty solid, reliable director.
This year he has received his first Academy Award nomination as a director for his Bob Dylan pic 'A Complete Unknown' - a return to the music biopic territory he mined so effectively in the Johnny Cash flick 'Walk The Line'.
And it comes as no surprise that Cash appears in this biopic - not in the form of Joaquin Phoenix but played by Boyd Holbrook.
However it is Timothee Chalamet who has been scooping up awards season nominations for his performance as Dylan in a film that focuses on the singer songwriter's controversial transformation from acoustic guitar strumming folk star hero to an electric guitar welding folk rock icon.
Adapted by Mangold and Jay Cocks from Elijah Wald's 2015 book 'Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan and the Night That Split The Sixties,' it is yet another showcase for the Minnesotan's songwriting genius.
The movie is also a stout defence of the right of any artist to follow their creative instincts even if that risks alienating some of their fanbase.
A hagiography, though, it ain't.
Chalamet's Dylan doesn't treat those who love or admire him particularly well in the movie - whether it is Elle Fanning's girlfriend Sylvie Russo (modelled on his real life girlfriend Suze Rotolo), Monica Barbaro's Joan Baez or Edward Norton's folk singing icon Pete Seeger who champions him early in his career.
Yet despite his ruthless ambition, you'd defend Dylan's right to artistic expression and refusal to be pigeonholed just like Holbrook's Johnny Cash when the Minnesotan enrages the bulk of his audience and the organisers of the Newport Folk Festival.
While Chalamet nails Dylan's voice and look, he also delivers a layered performance that goes beyond mere impersonation.
The same is true of Norton, Barbaro and Holbrook.
Fanning is effective as a wronged girlfriend, while Scoot McNairy shines as well as the legendary Woody Guthrie who Dylan idolises but only encounters in hospital when the folk music pioneer has succumbed to the ravages of Huntingdon's Disease.
Dan Fogler amuses too as the folk rock impresario Albert Grossman who managed Dylan, Baez, The Band, Gordon Lightfoot and Peter, Paul and Mary.
Sturdily made by Mangold and his crew, there's no attempt to distract from a compelling tale with epic camera sweeps or overblown editing.
Mangold's film just rolls along at an assured pace and it never sags.
While the movie will not necessarily leave you loving or loathing Dylan any more than you did previously, it serves a reminder (if one was needed) of his songwriting genius and why he is the only music icon to have a Nobel Prize for literature to his name.
As must biopics go, this is in the top tier and it certainly is a worthy awards season contender.
('A Complete Unknown' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on January 17, 2025)
A DIFFERENT MAN (Aaron Schimberg)
If you weren't going to screen a double bill of Coralie Fairgeat's 'The Substance" with 'Nightbitch,' there might be an argument for replacing Marielle Heller's movie with Aaron Schimberg's dark comedy 'A Different Man's.
Like 'The Substance,' the main protagonist undergoes a physical transformation to improve his life.
And like Demi Moore's Elisabeth Sparkle, it all goes awry - although not in quite the same way.
In a performance that is even better than his strong Oscar nominated turn as Donald Trump in 'The Apprentice,' Sebastian Stan plays Edward, a socially awkward actor who suffers from neurofibromatosis - a condition where tumours cause a facial disfigurement.
Struggling to make his mark as an actor, he strikes up a connection with Renate Reinsve's neighbour in his grotty apartment, Ingrid who is a playwright.
Edward is offered a shot at a new life through a medical trial that cures him of his condition and transforms his physical appearance.
Rather than reveal this to Ingrid, he instead adopts a new persona Guy Moratz, landing a job as a real estate agent and pretending his old self has died.
When Ingrid writes a play about Edward, he successfully auditions for the part in an off-Broadway production using a mask of his old face and starts to date his ex-neighbour, only to be usurped when Adam Pearson's neurofibromatosis sufferer Oswald comes into their world.
Stan won a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical for this black comedy for a performance that requires him to spend a third of the film under mounds of prosthetics.
However he also eschews the typical Hollywood treatment of a character with an illness or disability.
Edward is not noble or a exceptional high achiever who inspired everyone he encounters. In fact, he's the opposite.
Shy, uncertain of himself and pretty wooden as an actor, he discovers that his change of appearance does not alter his personality.
Stan's performance is more than matched by real life neurofibromatosis sufferer Pearson whose character Oswald is by way of contrast confident, clever and also very capable as an actor.
As his fortunes take an upward swing, Edward/Guy struggles to grasp how that can be and that is part of the film's genius.
Yet again like 'Nightbitch', this is another example of a film that deserved better during awards season.
It marks writer director Schimberg out as a real talent and you can only hope in an industry where even established filmmakers have to struggle to get projects off the ground, that talent is encouraged and properly nurtured.
('A Different Man' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on October 10, 2024 and was made available on streaming services on January 17, 2025)
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