In viewing A Complete Unknown, I must admit to remaining mystified that rock biopics continue to get made at all in the wake of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, the hysterically funny and tragically underseen 2007 parody of basically every rockstar biopic ever made. Indeed, so comprehensive is its satire that the titular Cox even goes through his own Dylan phase, during which he spouts pure gibberish and his own bandmates cannot figure out what is going on. The mystification is compounded by the fact that director and co-writer James Mangold had previously made Walk the Line, a biopic of Johnny Cash and primary reference text for Walk Hard. One has to wonder whether the present film is a deliberate provocation or whether he just doesn’t care.
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