I have a complicated relationship with the music biopic. So many tell the same story over and over again without any choices that feel distinctly creative, or like something that deserves to exist outside the context of a documentary. Almost 20 years ago, director James Mangold made Walk the Line, the Oscar-winning biopic about Johnny Cash, that was so brilliantly parodied in Jake Kasdan’s Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Walk Hard dissected the music biopic in such a precise way, that I tend to think about it every time I see a new music biopic come out of Hollywood. I’m so desperate for any creativity in this subgenre, that when a music biopic is doing anything even slightly out of the ordinary, I’ll tend to be won over by that alone. This holiday season, James Mangold has made another music biopic, A Complete Unknown, a biopic of Bob Dylan starring Timothée Chalamet in the lead role. How did this thing turn out?

A Complete Unknown opens on Bob Dylan (Chalamet), stepping off a bus in New York City with only his guitar in the year 1961. He meets his idol Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) and befriends musician Pete Seeger (Edward Norton), who notices an uncommon talent in the musician. He falls for Sylvie (Elle Fanning), but has an affair with the singer Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro). We follow Dylan’s rise to fame between 1961 and 1964, his unwillingness to compromise his art, and how he essentially made the lives of everyone around him more difficult in those few years. 

Does A Complete Unknown transcend the tropes of the music biopic, or even add anything new to the conversation? It sure does not. In fact, I am not sure if James Mangold ever saw Walk Hard, because a lot of what was being parodied about his Walk the Line, is still present here. And yet, it took me awhile into A Complete Unknown before I remembered – Walk the Line was actually not a bad movie. It just led to a lot of bad movies. A Complete Unknown works and works very well and there are several reasons why, but the main one is Timothée Chalamet’s detailed and deeply committed performance.

Timothée Chalamet, an actor I’ve always enjoyed watching, and one I have great confidence in, felt like an odd choice to play the legendary Bob Dylan. He has a very specific sound of his speaking voice and his singing voice, and it would be so easy for Chalamet to simply be doing an impersonation of the legendary musician, and Chalamet is never taking the easy way out. My (unfounded, to be fair) doubts about his ability to pull this off quickly evaporated within the first few minutes of this movie. 

In this film, Bob Dylan is not really a very likable guy. He’s manipulative, he’s a bit mean, and kind of uncaring to those who clearly care for him. The way Chalamet is able to disappear into this part, and allow his version of Bob Dylan the space to be more than just one thing, immediately makes this movie worth the viewer’s time, and probably worthy of some awards season traction. Oh, he’s also singing the songs. The way he’s able to nail Bob Dylan’s very specific sound is shocking. His rendition of a specific song is so good it moved me to tears. I will absolutely be purchasing the soundtrack to this one when it becomes available. 

We also have a murderer’s row of supporting players here. Monica Barbaro is really, really good as Joan Baez – so good you’ll occasionally wish this was her movie. Baez, not unlike Dylan, is an iconic musician with a very specific look and sound to her voice, and Barbaro is nailing both, giving a performance that is every bit as compelling as what Chalamet is doing. We also have Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, and he’s doing great work as well. Elle Fanning as Sylvie Russo, Dylan’s on-again-off-again girlfriend between 1961 and 1964, is quite good although you leave feeling like they could have given her more to do than mainly react to things. 

Mangold’s screenplay, cowritten with Jay Cocks, makes the smart choice of focusing on a critical point in Dylan’s life. And even though he’s covering the span of a few years, it doesn’t have that biopic stink of following the character from birth to present day. When we meet the character of Bob Dylan, he’s a bit of an enigma. He steps off a bus one day with no luggage and just a guitar, and he won’t talk about his past. He’s elusive and mysterious and a bit idealistic. We have a lot of the beats we’re familiar with in these movies – the writing of the great song, the rise to fame and the big show we end the movie on. But there’s enough fine detailing here in the work Chalamet is doing, that it makes what is mundane about this story a little easier to accept. 

Overall, there is one big reason to see A Complete Unknown and that is Timothée Chalamet. This is the finest leading performance from an actor that I’ve seen in an American movie all year, and I think he’s about to shake up some of our current Oscar season predictions. The movie itself is kind of more of a vibe than a fully formed narrative, and that’s either going to work for you or it isn’t, but if you walk into this movie with any sort of appreciation for Bob Dylan’s artistry, I think you’ll find something to take away from the work James Mangold has done.