Edward Norton, Elle Fanning and Monica Barbaro also star in this portrait of the early ’60s Greenwich Village folk scene and the friction caused by Dylan rejecting his acoustic roots.

In Walk the Line, James Mangold’s entertaining 2005 account of how Johnny Cash found his sound and the love of his life in June Carter, first-rate actors and rousing musical interludes helped boost a conventional bio-drama approach that sanded down many of the complexities of the legendary Man in Black. Mangold’s new film, A Complete Unknown, follows a comparable path in examining the emergence of Bob Dylan from the Greenwich Village folk music scene of the early ’60s. It has many similar strengths but different weaknesses, though Timothée Chalamet’s electrifying — in every sense — lead performance is not among the latter.

That includes Chalamet pouring himself into Dylan’s songs. His voice — raw, nasal, scratchy but full of passion, anger and wry wisdom — is near enough to the original to be unmistakable and yet colored by the actor’s persona to a degree that suggests something closer to symbiosis than impersonation.

Edward Norton — reminding us what a consummate actor he is — works similar magic with the music of Pete Seeger. He plays the banjo-strumming folk pioneer with unflappable calm, avuncular warmth and generosity of spirit, all of which infuse his singing. That applies even when he breaks into an impromptu performance of his buddy Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” on the courthouse steps after being convicted in a contempt of Congress case following his refusal to answer questions before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

The centeredness of this man of conscience allows him to show genuine joy in the young Dylan’s success even as it quickly eclipses his own, and his mostly muted response to what many would perceive as a betrayal makes us share the sting with him.

In a smaller role, Boyd Holbrook nails Johnny Cash’s craggy bass-baritone during a period when his sound was as much rock ‘n’ roll as country. He also captures the rugged masculinity and outlaw essence of a man indelibly viewed through the self-mythologizing prism of his songs. Johnny’s friendship with Bob is sparked out of the latter’s admiration for him, a seasoned music artist in the spotlight since the late ’50s, whom he appears to view as a kindred rebel spirit.

Barbaro and Chalamet’s duets on stage are among the movie’s standout musical moments, not least because Joan transmits such joy in her rapport with both Bob and the audience. By contrast, his participation becomes increasingly ungiving, testing her forbearance. Anyone who saw the intimate 2023 doc about Baez, I Am a Noise, will be familiar with the folk queen’s ambivalence about her time with Dylan, despite acknowledging that his songs gave her material new political focus.

It was an open question whether an authorized biopic on which Jeff Rosen, Dylan’s longtime professional representative, was part of the producing team would gloss over the subject’s spikier side. To the filmmakers’ credit, that’s not at all the case.

“You’re kind of an asshole, Bob,” Joan tells him when he bluntly informs her that she tries too hard with her writing, dismissing her songs as “like an oil painting at the dentist’s office.” “Yeah, I guess,” he replies, with zero self-reproach. A later scene in which she kicks him out of her Chelsea Hotel room after he turns up unannounced and instantly disappears inside his head is a corker.