12 Minnesota musicians review the Bob Dylan biopic: Thumbs-up, but...

Rootsy Minneapolis singer/songwriter Jack Klatt arrived with low expectations at a recent free screening of the dramatic Bob Dylan film “A Complete Unknown.”

“I’m not really a fan of biopics, and I’m a big Dylan nut,” he said. “I was kind of scared of the prospects of a biopic of Bob Dylan. I guess afraid.”

Afraid filmmaker James Mangold wouldn’t do Dylan justice. Afraid Hollywood heartthrob Timothée Chalamet couldn’t become young Dylan. Afraid a movie couldn’t capture the bigness of Bob.

No reason to be stuck in Minneapolis with the Dylan blues again.

“I was pleasantly surprised,” Klatt said after the movie. “They captured the American fairy-tale aspect of his story. They summed up the crazy whirlwind that Dylan must have gone through when he got to New York, on a rocket ship to who knows where.

“And I loved Chalamet’s performances. His playing was great. I loved that there was no Auto-Tune [on his singing] or it wasn’t produced. It wasn’t very polished. It was raw and gritty just like it should be.”

Klatt, 39, was among the Minnesota musicians invited to “A Complete Unknown” at the Main Cinema in early December, where Chalamet introduced the movie and answered questions afterward from a radio host.

The Minnesota Star Tribune spoke to 12 musicians — ages 25 to 75 — who saw “A Complete Unknown.” Every one of them gave a thumbs-up. Asked to rate the movie on a scale of 1 to 10, one musician offered 6, another said 9 and everyone else fell somewhere between. The average was 7.7.

The musicians praised Chalamet, who learned to play guitar and harmonica for the movie — and to sing à la Dylan.

“We all know how many people have tried to sound like Bob Dylan or impersonate his style in some way, so for an actor to attempt that was really brave,” said Page Burkum, 43, of the neo-twangy Cactus Blossoms. “As a big fan of Dylan, I’m not expecting anyone to be him and to replicate him, but they captured the spirit of it really well.”

Jack Torrey, 38, of the Cactus Blossoms admits he has trouble suspending disbelief when he sees a movie actor portray a famous real-life person.

“Sometimes I have trouble getting into it,” he acknowledged. “I was able to enjoy this one, which surprised me. I love Dylan.”

Like Dylan, Autumn Vagle, 26, of prairie rock band Keep for Cheap, grew up on the Iron Range, in Virginia, Minn. Although she has reservations about biopics, she praised Chalamet’s work.

“The way he held himself in that role was very convincing,” she said. “I like how they relied on the music to tell the story as the most important part of the emotion in the movie.”

She admits, however, that she struggled to pay attention to the movie “because of the adrenaline of seeing Timothée” in person before the film rolled. “I want to rewatch it.”

Her bandmate, Kate Malanaphy, 25, confesses that she was “never a huge fan of Timothée. He won me over, for sure.”

Another Gen Z musician, Grant Hamilton, 26, of indie synth-pop band Guytano, is a big fan of Chalamet’s movies like “Dune” and “Wonka.”

“I thought this was his best performance,” Hamilton said. “Knowing now that they did all the songs live to camera, that is an extra special thing.”

Even more experienced music makers were impressed by Chalamet.

“Efforts were made to make sure people weren’t distracted by ‘He was Timothée Chalamet,’” said Americana singer/songwriter Laamar, 40. “He wasn’t trying to be a handsomer, more suave, whatever version of Dylan than we imagine Dylan was. I wasn’t distracted by having a Hollywood leading man playing Dylan.”

“A Complete Unknown” chronicles the Duluth-born, Hibbing-raised Dylan from the time he arrived in New York in 1961 until he transitioned from acoustic folkie to electric rocker at the Newport Folk Festival in ‘65. The Minnesota musicians were glad that director Mangold didn’t try to cover more territory.

“I don’t think anyone can do Dylan justice unless they’re going to do a 12-hour biopic by Ken Burns,” said Laamar.

There seems to be a stigma about biopics. Fans can’t always get what they want.

Veteran drummer Hugo Klaers, 68, of the long-lived dance rockers the Suburbs, found himself comparing “A Complete Unknown” with the recent blockbuster biopics of Queen (“Bohemian Rhapsody”) and Elton John (“Rocketman”).

“I thought this one was way better,” he opined. “It seemed more realistic.”

Unlike those nearly career-spanning projects, “A Complete Unknown” covers just Dylan’s formative years, starting when he met his heroes Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.

Minneapolis folkie Charlie Maguire, who has been performing for 50-plus years and has 4 feet of Dylan books on his shelf, knew Seeger personally. Having been mentored by the folk legend in the early 1970s, Maguire went to the movie curious “to see how it treated my friends.”

“Edward Norton did a magnificent job. He was more Pete Seeger than Pete Seeger was,” Maguire said. “I recognized the Pete I knew.”

However, Maguire was disappointed that Minneapolis folk-blues hero Tony Glover was not depicted in the movie even though he hung out with Dylan in this time period, notably in the recording studio, at the Newport Folk Festival and in Guthrie’s hospital room.

Said Maguire of Glover: “He was the one who taught Bob Dylan how to behave around Woody Guthrie,” who had Huntington’s disease and couldn’t speak but insisted on lighting his own cigarettes.

“A Complete Unknown” focuses on Dylan’s development as an artist, especially as a songwriter, which pleased the younger generation of Minnesota musicians.

“It gave me a romantic feeling about being a gypsy songwriter,” said Trampled by Turtles frontman Dave Simonett, 44, who has performed at the Newport Folk Festival. “It made me get a little bit nostalgic for it.”

“A Complete Unknown” also revealed little-known personality traits about its self-consciously mysterious subject.

“I found him to be more compassionate than I realized because he’s always been tagged as rather aloof,” Klaers said. “The [relationship] with Woody Guthrie was really sweet.”

While many of the musicians said the movie was inspiring, no one was more inspired than Jayhawks keyboardist Karen Grotberg. Not only did it send her back to relisten to old Dylan albums but it sparked her own music making.

“I felt like I had an infusion for my own songwriting,” said Grotberg, 65. “I’ve been wanting to take guitar lessons for a long time; I’ve been able to play some chords. The next day after the movie I signed up for that community ed guitar instruction course because [the movie] was so empowering.”

“A Complete Unknown” sparked Laamar to learn more about Dylan.

“It made me more curious,” he said. “It made me actually want to read a bit more about specific times and places like his relationships with Woody Guthrie and Joan Baez.”

The one question the musicians couldn’t agree on: Who will gain more fans because of “A Complete Unknown” — Dylan or Chalamet?

Hamilton thinks the movie will earn Chalamet more fans.

“It seems like a big deal to get that [role] under his belt,” he said. “It’s a departure.”

Indie singer/songwriter Landon Conrath, 25, disagrees. “We will definitely see,” he predicted, “an uptick in Dylan’s Spotify numbers in the next four months.”