Despite the high expectations for the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” it came away empty-handed at the 82nd Golden Globes Awards.
The annual Golden Globes Awards took place on January 5th at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. “A Complete Unknown” with Timothée Chalamet in the lead role was looked forward to with high expectations. The 140-minute film tells the story of the young Bob Dylan, who reaches New York City with his guitar in the 1960s and follows the exceptional talent on his way to fame. Even before the official start of the film, Chalamet caused enough media excitement with his Dylan impersonation: photos from the set with Timothée in sideburns, plus Bob Dylan himself, who speaks enthusiastically about the “Dune” actor, and videos of Chalamet singing songs by the music legend for the best. Ultimately, he was able to convince 29-year-olds as Dylan and started this year’s awards season with rosy prospects.
“A Complete Unknown” lost twice to “The Brutalist”
Chalamet was considered one of the favorites for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture. But instead of him, the award went to Adrien Brody for his role as László Tóth in “The Brutalist”.
A similar fate befell Edward Norton, who stars as Pete Seeger in “A Complete Unknown.” The 55-year-old was nominated at the Golden Globes for best supporting actor in a drama, but lost in the category to Kieran Culkin for his role as Benji Kaplan in “A Real Pain”.
And once again “A Complete Unknown” had to admit defeat to “The Brutalist”: Both films were nominated in the best film (drama) category, but in the end “The Brutalist” took home the award.
Rock biopics have always been winners at the Golden Globes
The fact that the Bob Dylan biopic came out of the awards as a loser was particularly surprising because rock biopics had always done well at the Golden Globes before. Among other things, “Bohemian Rhapsody” not only won the award for best film (musical/comedy) in 2019, the biopic’s leading actor Rami Malek also won the award for best actor for his performance as Freddie Mercury. A year later, Taron Egerton won best actor for his role as Elton John in Rocketman. “Rocketman” also won the award for best original song with “Im Gonna Love Me Again” by Elton John and Bernie Taupin.
“A Complete Unknown” opens in German cinemas on February 27th.