Don’t call his movie jazz. Hazily moving back and forth in time, Miles Ahead takes place during the legendary trumpet player’s self-imposed 5-year hiatus from making music during the 1970s, flashing back to memories of his tumultuous relationship with ex-wife Frances Taylor (Emayatzy Corinealdi). It’s a disjointed, bizarre, and oddly compelling structure that Miles himself may have admired. Don Cheadle—playing Miles, co-writing, and making his feature directorial debut—hones in non-musical moments from Davis’ life in creating this muddled biography, with at least one more gun-toting car chase than expected. As cool as Miles Ahead’s stylistic flairs are—bleeding Miles Davis performances into the middle of a boxing ring and elsewhere—Miles Ahead still falls victim to the stiffness of conventional biopics, hampered by its own ambition.

Cheadle has worked nearly a decade on Miles Ahead, co-writing the script with Steven Baigelman (story credit on last year’s James Brown flick Get On Up) and even turning to IndieGoGo for a final bit of fundraising. More than any other element, Cheadle the actor appears ready for the challenge of capturing the soul of Miles. He convincingly resembles Davis when tapping on his trumpet and donning the garish outfits Miles wore at the time. Sounding like a man in recovery from a weeklong binge, Cheadle’s Davis adopts a scratchy, apathetic tone somewhere between conversational dialog and a man mumbling under his breath. His performance brings the dynamic, unpredictable energy Miles Ahead needs, but the film surrounding him is too sparse to keep pace with his rhythm.

Miles Ahead’s frantic assembly loses sight of the characters in Davis’ radius. Though flashbacks (and flashforwards) transport the film back over a decade, the majority of the “present day” action occurs across two crazy days during Davis’ exile. He’s bothered by the unrelenting knocks at his door from fictional and inexplicably pursuant Rolling Stone writer Dave Brill, played by Ewan McGregor, who alternates between authentic and fake bafflement. Davis asks Brill if he can drive before using the writer as a chauffeur to Columbia Records, where he arrives gun-in-hand to demand a $20,000 payment. One of the executives (played by a mustache-twirling Michael Stuhlbarg) makes sleazy attempts to win over Miles before hatching a plan to steal Davis’ latest recordings—which he literally refers to as, “gold.” The subsequent chain of events involved in the losing, tracking, and re-acquiring of this unreleased recording borders on ridiculous, and would more appropriately belong to a Guy Ritchie heist plot than the Miles Davis story.

These distractions pull the film away from the music. Miles Ahead never plays like a greatest hits record, often turning away from the Kind Of Blue hits in favor of obscure cuts from Miles Davis’ career. Even when songs are heard, they are relegated to the background of scenes in which Davis fruitlessly searches for his new sound. In the beginning, pouring a session tape, Davis stares down his trumpet from across the room and mutters, “Fuck you lookin’ at?” Cheadle attempts to define the obstacles Davis had in returning to recording after taking time off, but in the context of his erratic vision, Davis’ inability to compose is reduced to a subplot.

Cheadle reaches for a lot of disparate concepts with his long-in-development Miles Davis biopic. He looks to articulate the impact of his music while focusing on the prolific musician’s least productive period. Cheadle tries to make a film about the essence of Miles’ work but offers an intentionally limited perspective on the man. Miles Ahead remains entirely watchable, yet the ways in which the film falls short of its target are frustratingly apparent throughout. When Cheadle trots out as Davis with #SocialMusic emblazoned on his vest during the film’s finale, it’s one final oblique maneuver that seems as confused as the rest of this incomplete portrait. Despite a tremendous performance at its center, Miles Ahead gets lost in its attempt to embody Davis’ artistic spirit.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center today revealed the 26 features making up its main slate for the 53rd New York Film Festival running September 25th to October 11th. Joining Opening Night selection The Walk and Closing Night selection Miles Ahead in making their World Premieres at the 2015 festival are Steven Spielberg‘s Cold War drama Bridge of Spies (starring Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance) and Laura Israel‘s documentary portrait Don’t Blink: Robert Frank. Several other highly lauded films taking part in the three-week showcase includes Hou Hsiao-hsien‘s Cannes award-winning film The Assassin, John Crowley‘s romantic drama Brooklyn, as well as Centerpiece screening Steve Jobs.

New York Film Festival Director and Selection Committee Chair, Kent Jones remarked, “I could talk about the geographical range of the films in the selection, the mix of artistic sensibilities … but the only thing that really matters is how uniformly beautiful and vital each of these movies are.” Additional special events, the documentary section, filmmaker conversations and panels, as well as the festival’s Projections and Convergence programs will be announced in full closer to festival’s September start date. Tickets go on sale to the general public Sunday, September 13th.

Read the list of features making up the 53rd NYFF main slate below:

Opening Night

The Walk
Director, Robert Zemeckis

Centerpiece

Steve Jobs
Director, Danny Boyle

Closing Night

Miles Ahead
Director, Don Cheadle

Arabian Nights: Volume 1, The Restless One
Arabian Nights: Volume 2, The Desolate One
Arabian Nights: Volume 3, The Enchanted One
Director, Miguel Gomes

The Assassin
Director, Hou Hsiao-hsien

Bridge of Spies
Director, Steven Spielberg

Brooklyn
Director, John Crowley

Carol
Director, Todd Haynes

Cemetery of Splendour
Director, Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Les Cowboys
Director, Thomas Bidegain

Don’t Blink: Robert Frank
Director, Laura Israel

Experimenter
Director, Michael Almereyda

The Forbidden Room
Directors, Guy Maddin & Evan Johnson

In the Shadow of Women / L’Ombre des femmes
Director, Philippe Garrel

Journey to the Shore / Kishibe no tabi
Director, Kiyoshi Kurosawa

The Lobster
Director, Yorgos Lanthimos

Maggie’s Plan
Director, Rebecca Miller

The Measure of a Man / La Loi du marché
Director, Stéphane Brizé

Mia Madre
Director, Nanni Moretti

Microbe & Gasoline / Microbe et Gasoil
Director, Michel Gondry

Mountains May Depart
Director, Jia Zhangke

My Golden Days / Trois Souvenirs de ma jeunesse
Director, Arnaud Desplechin

No Home Movie
Director, Chantal Akerman

Right Now, Wrong Then
Director, Hong Sangsoo

The Treasure / Comoara
Director, Corneliu Porumboiu

Where To Invade Next
Director, Michael Moore