Earlier this month, Bob Dylan weighed in on X about the new biopic, A Complete Unknown, based on Elijah Wald’s 2015 nonfiction book, Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties. The Nobel Prize winner noted that Timothée 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.” That last bit is revealing, because from the start of his career, Dylan worked hard to shed his identity as Robert Zimmerman of middle-class Hibbing, Minnesota, and affect the persona of a “rumpled young heir to Woody Guthrie,” as Wald puts it. When Dylan arrived in New York City in 1961, it’s clear that he was committed to the idea of finding “some other me.”

The new film, which premieres in theaters on Dec. 25, is a bit disappointing as an adaptation, as it ignores some elements that make the book great. As an examination of Dylan’s essential unknowability, however, it’s a fascinating watch.

Wald’s book discusses the young Dylan but mainly concentrates on the folk music scene that inspired him. That scene was already well established when the 19-year-old musician turned up in Greenwich Village. One of the first things he did was seek out his idol, folk legend Woody Guthrie, who was in a New Jersey hospital with Huntington’s disease; he soon met Guthrie’s longtime friend and fellow folk icon, Pete Seeger, who was impressed by the talented newcomer and helped get him gigs and a record contract. Dylan also became close with other major music figures, including, notably, Joan Baez; his live-in relationship with activist Suze Rotolo helped to spur his interest in writing protest songs, which would go on to be his first big successes. Within just two years of his arrival in the Village, he had a successful album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, and Peter, Paul and Mary’s cover of his song “Blowin’ in the Wind” had been a massive hit.

In 1963, he played the Newport Folk Festival with Baez; the annual event, organized in part by Seeger, was dedicated to the folk and blues idiom, with little interest in the pop and rock genres or nonacoustic instrumentation. But by the time of the 1965 festival, it was clear that Dylan didn’t want to be pinned down as a folksinger anymore; his songs were using more electric instruments and concentrating less on protest topics. His new single when he took the stage at Newport in 1965 was the roaring “Like a Rolling Stone,” featuring the lyric: “How does it feel / to be on your own / with no direction home / like a complete unknown?” His band played that song and a few others at a very loud volume; according to the New York Times, the audience of folk purists roundly booed him, with one famously shouting “Judas!”

This was one of many legends that attached itself to the event over the years, and one largely reproduced in the film. Wald clarifies, through research and interviews, that the reaction was actually mixed; some attendees loved it. There was also a widespread rumor that an outraged Seeger tried to cut the sound cables with an axe while Dylan was onstage; this also didn’t happen, as Wald notes, although the film does have Seeger consider it. Wald points out that the show remains something of a landmark in 1960s pop-culture history: “In most tellings,” he says, “Dylan represents youth and the future, and the people who booed were stuck in a dying past.” His book, however, refuses to fall back on such easy simplifications; it was a tumultuous time when a lot of people were searching—very often, for themselves—and Dylan was no different on that score.

The new film—directed and co-written by James Mangold (Walk the Line, Logan)—does a fine job of portraying the folk scene and its denizens. Yes, its portrayal of the ’65 Newport Folk Festival performance is a bit dodgy, but the filmmakers are more interested in portraying the enigma of Dylan than in relitigating the electric-versus-acoustic debate. The new title, A Complete Unknown, clearly refers to Dylan himself—not in the sense that he rose from obscurity but in that he was a cipher to many who knew him.

Chalamet astutely portrays him as a charmer who soaks up every influence around him but is also quite self-centered; people like Seeger, Baez, and Rotolo (here renamed “Sylvie Russo”) feed his art and aid his quest for success, and then he treats them with contempt when their desires diverge from his own. Some might see this sort of thing as heroic individualism, but it’s clear that the film does not. At one point, Dylan insults Baez to her face—shortly after they sleep together—by saying that her songs are “like an oil painting at the dentist’s office,” and she, as played by an excellent Monica Barbaro, immediately, and rightly, points out that he’s “kind of an asshole.” He also treats Seeger (a wonderful Edward Norton) carelessly, as well as Russo, played with sharp intelligence by Elle Fanning. He visits Guthrie (a fine Scoot McNairy) mainly so that he can “catch a spark” from the ailing, nonverbal songwriter.

Most interestingly, the film doesn’t follow the biopic boilerplate by having Dylan see the error of his ways; the “other me” wins out. As he rides off into the sunset on his motorcycle, viewers will be startled by how many bridges he’s burned behind him—and the knowledge that he also wrote so many amazing songs along the way.

David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.