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Bob Dylan Biopic Filmed In NJ Gets Praise From Critics: 'Exceeds Expectations'

"A Complete Unknown" the Bob Dylan biopic that was shot throughout New Jersey is earning high marks from critics.

Timothee Chalamet plays Bob Dylan in "A Complete Unknown."

Timothee Chalamet plays Bob Dylan in "A Complete Unknown."

Photo Credit: Svenska Dagbladet via IMS Vintage Photos/Nine Stars on Wikipedia

The movie which has Timothee Chalamet playing the iconic singer/songwriter as he navigates the New York music scene in the 1960s has a 74% rating at Rotten Tomatoes and a 70 rating at Metacritic. It opens on Christmas Day.

Director James "Mangold has crafted the definitive portrait of this era and the poetic, aspiring, rebellious kid who refused to be pigeonholed, held down and defined," said a rave review in The Playlist.

"Like its subject has done so many times in his six-decade career, this one exceeds expectations," wrote a review at RogerEbert.com.

"Director James Mangold’s biopic wonderfully keeps him a mysterious minstrel, studying a complex artist reaching the early heights of his talents when times were a-changin'," wrote a review at Variety.

Still, not all reviews were positive.

"The bevy of documentaries, narrative films, and books about Bob Dylan’s breakout, ascent, and impact on the 1960s pop zeitgeist could fill a library, which makes this oversimplified retread of the same topic all the more tedious and superfluous," a critic for Slant Magazine wrote.

Last week, the movie received praise from the subject himself.

"There’s a movie about me opening soon called A Complete Unknown (what a title!)," Dylan wrote on social media. "Timothee Chalamet is starring in the lead role. Timmy’s a brilliant actor so I’m sure he’s going to be completely believable as me. Or a younger me. Or some other me. The film’s taken from Elijah Wald’s 'Dylan Goes Electric' – a book that came out in 2015. It’s a fantastic retelling of events from the early ‘60s that led up to the fiasco at Newport. After you’ve seen the movie read the book."

"A Complete Unknown" was filmed in Hudson, Essex, Passaic and Cape May counties from the end of March through May, Steven Gorelick, the director of the New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission said.

Regular sightings of Chalamet and other stars like Elle Fanning in places like Hoboken were shared on social media.

Mangold previously directed the Johnny Cash biopic "Walk the Line." Dylan serves as an executive producer of the film.

To view the trailer, click here.

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