Similar to Pharrell’s novel music biopic Piece by Piece, filmmakers are at least trying to do something different with the well-worn genre. Nobody needs another deluge of formulaic, Oscar-bait rock music dramas, and this season we’re getting some that are coming straight out of left field. Or, like in the case of Better Man, a film that is…well, sorta bananas. U.K. superstar Robbie Williams might not be as well known here in the States, and people might ask themselves why they need to see a movie about this rocker they’ve never heard of. And the answer is that his story, while a somewhat familiar rise and fall and rise again tale full of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll, features Williams as a CGI chimp. That’s right. He’s a monkey.
Is it a gimmick? You damn right it is. Better Man is like the Project NIM of music biopics, and that makes for an intriguing hook to get people who might not know Williams to buy a ticket. Does it ultimately add anything other than a much higher budget? Not really. When all is said and done, it’s the way Williams tells his story, and the beautiful, visually dazzling style of The Greatest Showman director Michael Gracey, that makes this a film worth rockin’ out to.
Employing cutting-edge motion-capture tech by WETA and an incredible physical performance by Jonno Davies as Williams, Better Man packs a ton of story into its bursting two-hour frame. Williams’ journey from hard-scrabble upbringing to drug-fueled superstardom hits a lot of recognizable beats, but the film moves at a breakneck pace and has some astounding setpieces. On top of the peculiar decision to cast Williams as a monkey, this is one biography that stands apart from the rest.
The film moves quickly through Williams’ blue-collar upbringing in Stoke. A born entertainer with a vivid imagination, Williams was always inspired by his negligent father Peter (Steve Pemberton), a low-level performer who taught his son to idolize the Rat Pack. We see him landing his big break in the boy band Take That, which was huge in the ’90s and is still together to this day. Not that Williams is part of them, as he quickly grew tired of just being…well, the group’s dancing monkey. His personal demons took over and he was kicked out of the group, left to try his hand at a solo career.
The reason the monkey gimmick isn’t necessary is because Better Man has Williams. I’d be lying if I said he was known much to me, but what I came away with is that he’s extremely blunt and honest about himself. Better Man is different because Williams is so open about everything. Unlike other biopics that massage the image of their subjects so as to coddle them, Williams shows himself as a shitty team player, a bad son who took his hard-working mom (Kate Mulvaney) for granted, a horrible boyfriend to All Saints member Nicole Appleton (Raechelle Banno), and sometimes just a bad person in general. It wasn’t all due to his cocaine use and sexual escapades, either. Or at least, the screenplay by Gracey, Oliver Cole, and Simon Gleeson doesn’t try to come up with excuses for it.
I don’t buy the idea that casting Williams as a CGI chimp helps people get over an actor’s impersonation. Did that stop Rami Malek from winning an Oscar for Bohemian Rhapsody? That he didn’t look exactly like Freddie Mercury? Of course not. It’s a ridiculous notion that audiences would nitpick an actor’s look so hard as to knock the entire movie. The only reason they’d do that is if the movie wasn’t very good. The casting choice doesn’t necessarily hurt Better Man until the emotional final moments when Williams is having the most triumphant moment of his life in front of the people who love him most that it’s absurd he looks like an extra from Planet of the Apes. It’s such a wild miscalculation not to have course-corrected for the most pivotal scenes.
Gracey built his career as a VFX wiz on several movies before taking the reins himself with 2017’s The Greatest Showman, one of the most popular musicals in recent memory. If you thought the brilliant circus numbers there were impressive, Better Man has some that will blow your mind, including an electric dance sequence through London’s Regents Street. A romantically powerful duet between Williams and Appleton sweeps us through the entirety of their relationship, the highs and lows backed by a rendition of World Party’s “She’s the One.”
Whether you’re familiar with Robbie Williams or not, Better Man is such an emotionally honest, beautifully rendered biopic that it doesn’t need the chimpanzee gimmick. But you shouldn’t let that stop you from experiencing this wonderful film, which on the surface seems like it shouldn’t turn out as well as it does.
Paramount Pictures opens Better Man in theaters on Christmas Day before going national on January 10th 2025.
NOTE: An edited version of this review was part of our Middleburg Film Festival coverage.
