A Complete Unknown is a rock-solid biopic, charting the first four years of Bob Dylan’s ascendance to cultural icon status.

Covering Dylan’s relocation from Minnesota to New York in 1961, up until he ‘went electric’ at Newport in 1965, the film shows the singer creating his public identity in real time.

Dylan, played by Timothée Chalamet, arrives as a mumbling folk singer on bended knee to Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) and Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) and grows to become the unwitting face of a generation just a few years later.

It is a meteoric rise that charts the first of Dylan’s many musical and cultural shifts, which is one of the reasons a straightforward birth-to-present biopic might be impossible.

Director Todd Haynes broke the form when he made I’m Not There in 2007, but had to cast six different actors just to try and get at Dylan’s different eras.

A Complete Unknown’s decision to hone in on a four-year period is a great choice, which allows director James Mangold and Chalamet to avoid some common biopic pitfalls.

Musical biopics have become quite popular in the last decade, with Freddie Mercury, Elvis Presley, Bob Marley, Whitney Houston and Amy Winehouse, among others, having their lives transposed to the big screen.

Those films have been middling to almost unwatchable and generally represent a sanitised look at the artist, signed off by their surviving estates.

A Complete Unknown definitely includes some stereotypes, but is unafraid to show Dylan as rude and his mistreatment of the women who fell in love with him.

Crucially though, the movie has full access to Dylan’s music and ultimately serves as a fantastic showcase for his early artistry.

By the time Chalamet sings ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’ for the first time in 1964, it is hard not to be swept away, particularly if you have any relationship to Dylan’s music.

To his credit, Chalamet chooses to sing his own version of Dylan’s songs rather than lip-syncing and he goes for a kind of interpretation rather than pure imitation.

He is excellent in the lead role, conveying discomfort at his newfound fame and what comes with it, while coming to life on stage.

Norton’s kindly mentor performance as Seeger and Monica Barbaro’s breakout as Joan Baez are both equally memorable.

If you have any affinity for Dylan’s music, A Complete Unknown will be worth the watch.

Rated 13 for Language.

4/5.

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