Literary biopics are always a dicey proposition. Even if someone adores the subject’s words on the page, it can be an uphill climb to make the act of sitting at a typewriter riveting cinema. Still, Finnish director Dome Karukoski’s dramatization of the early years of Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien has one big advantage — the readers who love his furry-footed mythology are more than mere fans. They’re obsessive. The film explores the formative years of the renowned author’s life as he finds friendship, courage, and inspiration among a fellow group of writers and artists at school. Their brotherhood strengthens as they grow up and weather love and loss together, including Tolkien’s tumultuous courtship of his beloved Edith Bratt, until the outbreak of the First World War which threatens to tear their fellowship apart. All of these experiences would later inspire Tolkien to write his famous Middle-earth novels, reports EW. Check out what he did in his Great War days.

Nicholas Hoult plays a young J.R.R. Tolkien in this biographical drama co-starring Lily Collins as his wife Edith Bratt and Derek Jacobi.

For the record, the Tolkien estate, represented by the author's last surviving son, has disassociated itself from the Fox Searchlight film, having for decades refused to cooperate with any attempt to dramatize the lives of the author, his wife, and family.