British pop star Robbie Williams tells his turbulent life story the only way he can in the newest film from Michael Gracey.
Trying something new within the constraints of the musical biopic subgenre can be difficult to accomplish; only the two-timeline story of Brian Wilson from 2015’s Love and Mercy and the Pharrell Williams-starring LEGO-animated music documentary Piece By Piece are the best and most unique of the canon’s relatively recent entries. Thankfully, Better Man can be added to the positive end of the genre’s spectrum for the collective audaciousness of director Michael Gracey and its subject, English singer-songwriter Robbie Williams, who is represented for the film’s runtime by a CGI chimpanzee.
For those who raised their eyebrows over that last detail, actor Jonno Davies plays a fictional version of pop star Robbie Williams here in a brilliant motion capture performance, while the real-life Williams serves as his character’s singing voice as well as the narrator of his life story. The extent of how compelled audiences will get by the narrative of Better Man depends on whether they vibe with this concept, but it’s achieved by putting us firmly into the honest and vulnerable perspective of Robbie himself, who tells his story with relatable sincerity and a cheeky sense of humor.
Williams described himself in his early days of entertainment as a ‘performing monkey’ in conversations with Michael Gracey while Better Man was being developed, and even admits during an early instance of vulnerability in his voiceover that he’s always viewed himself as “less evolved” than his peers. The famous overseas star has been vocal over his feelings about his past self while reflecting on it in his middle age (eg. the Netflix docuseries Robbie Williams), and Better Man is a perfect companion piece to that, as well as a raw, reflexive spin on its genre.
Better Man begins in 1982 when child Robbie (Carter J. Murphy) lives with his supportive grandmother Betty (Alison Steadman), mother Janet (Kate Mulvany) and father Peter (Steve Pemberton). His father’s particular love for Frank Sinatra instills a passion for fame as a performer within Robbie, along with the heavy burden of depression that plagues his mind after Peter suddenly vanishes from his life in pursuit for his own stardom.
A decade later, adult Robbie (Jonno Davies, as aforementioned) auditions for the boyband Take That, and secures the group’s final spot as its youngest member. The troupe gets its start performing in gay clubs all over England, but after a gig at a club for girls, they gain the massive following of screaming female fans and are on a rocketship toward fortune. This sets Robbie on his path toward celebrity with several turbulent bumps in the road, from a relationship with All Saints’ lead singer Nicole Appleton (Raechelle Banno) and butting heads with his manager and bandmates, to a dark, private inner war against his insecurities with which he uses drugs to cope, only for his reckless partying to threaten his life, career, and the people around him.
The simian-sized hook of Better Man thankfully works, not only through the WETA studio’s immaculately realized visual effects rendered with incredible detail (one can see the many tattoos Robbie wore on his chest underneath the realistic looking monkey fur), but also through Jonno Davies’ remarkable job of showing Robbie’s sincerity and emotional progression over the course of his rise and fall and recovery, communicating internal pain through his eyes in intimate moments, and torment in his voice during confrontations with close loved ones.
Gracey also directs Better Man into a special film by setting it in a world based in heightened reality. Robbie’s abusive inner thoughts are well manifested by stoic, imposing visions of himself, while a grandiose rendition of his infamous single “Rock DJ” takes place on London’s iconic Regent Street with hundreds of extras as Robbie and all the members of Take That dance in and out of stores, hold up vehicle traffic and even inadvertently shatter a giant gumball machine, wreaking fantastical havoc. The storytelling of Better Man is also smart to sum up certain aspects of Robbie’s journey through a bevy of montage sequences, one of which recalls his first solo tour and evokes a frightening meld of All That Jazz and Requiem For A Dream.
Despite this clever effort, Better Man does have the same familiar structure as all the musical biopics before it, it does run long at two hours and fifteen minutes, and some of the cheeky jokes sporadically derail the pacing of the narrative. It’s also worth noting there is an added film grain that does add more of a raw quality to the visual look, but is distractingly artificial and ultimately sticks out like a sore thumb given the film was initially shot in a digital format.
Those quibbles are pedantic admittedly, because Better Man amounts to a revealing and self-aware tale about a pop star’s brutal struggles against drug addiction and mental illness on his way toward redemption. Audiences will be endeared by Williams’ candidness both in his own narration and Davies’ visual performance, want to unearth more of the many number one hits he has performed for over thirty years, and understand the satirical subtext of Gracey’s latest that challenges us to think about the humanity behind our favorite performers. Fame can turn all it touches into wild animals, but it’s important to remember the wounded people they become after the curtain falls, and that lesson is why you can do no better than go see Better Man.