Director: Michael Gracey
Writers: Simon Gleeson, Oliver Cole, Michael Gracey
Stars: Robbie Williams, Jonno Davies, Steve Pemberton
Synopsis: A singular profile of British pop superstar Robbie Williams.
The ‘singular profile’ the synopsis refers to in the story of Robbie Williams in Michael Gracey’s Better Man is that its central figure is depicted as a monkey. From his childhood to his Take That days, following his solo career, we see the highs and lows of Williams’ music career and personal life as a chimpanzee plucked straight out of the Rise of the Planet of the Apes trilogy, which slightly discombobulates things, when everyone around him is a human. Williams provides the voice of himself (alongside frequent bursts of voiceover narration throughout the 135-minute-long film), while Jonno Davies captures him to life through motion capture.
Such a unique proposition certainly posits Gracey’s film as a unique biopic that longs to break the conventionalities that many ‘pop star’ pictures are stuck in. Few movies that focus on its central artist figure dare to do anything different than depict them through humble beginnings, a meteoric rise to success, a cataclysmic fall, and a redemption arc. This was the structure of Freddy Mercury’s story in the terrible Bohemian Rhapsody, with zero flair or desire to do anything more than stay in the most banal biopic tropes possible.
One movie that attempted to do something different with its structure was Dexter Fletcher’s Rocketman, and he more than succeeded in giving life to a rather stale sub-genre of biopics, and is, in my opinion, the best musical artist portrait of the last decade. Better Man certainly seems to take inspiration from Fletcher’s film, with frequent ‘song and dance’ numbers that represents Williams’ early-on success with the boyband Take That and manager Nigel Martin-Smith (Damon Herriman), the blossoming romance between him and All Saints member Nicole Appleton (Raechelle Banno), and the constant push-pull between the life he experiences and the voices he continuously hears from his inner demons.
Eventually, Williams battles those demons in one of the most surprisingly violent and cathartic action setpieces of the year that puts the entirety of the Matt Reeves Apes saga to shame. In watching such a scene, one has the impression that, in doing so, Gracey and co-screenwriters Simon Gleeson and Oliver Cole will push the boundaries of what is considered a ‘traditional’ biopic to deliver something wholly unique, in the image of Williams’ crazy life. His life was often as wild as the mere idea of turning him into a monkey for the entirety of Better Man. It was fleetingly positive, with occasional glimpses of a fruitful career, where the adoration between him and millions of fans would provide him the satisfaction he’d always wanted since he was a boy.
However, his career was far more self-destructive than rewarding, with Williams developing an early addiction to drugs and alcohol as a way to ‘combat’ his burgeoning depression. With such rapid adulation and praise, many could think that Williams’ life was what he’d always dreamed of. He certainly did, but not in the way it happened. Through these shocking moments of vulnerability, Gracey employs strong visual metaphors that represent how Williams’ career – and personal life – has gone out of control.
It’s in these sequences where Better Man works best. The story is all visual, and we perfectly understand what Gracey means when sticking Williams inside a frozen body of water, unable to break the ice, and drowning from the swarm of vulturous paparazzi who pull him further down, with no way out. For him, the only way to escape the internal and external pain of such a career is to partake in excessive drug use, to which we see depicted in rather harrowing fashion through these metaphorical scenes.
Even with the CGI monkey, the sheer naturalism of Davies’ live performance (alongside Williams’ voice) ultimately makes us convinced we’re watching a fully-fledged human being and quickly forget we’re seeing his life told through the eyes of a chimp. It’s also a testament to WETA’s endearing quest for turning performance capture into an artform, with this year’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and now Better Man differently showcasing how the technology has evolved ever since Andy Serkis paved the way for the adoption of such a practice in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
And yet, with such a wild framing device and visual-heavy scenes, Better Man is unfortunately bogged down by an insistence of staying within the regular biopic structure with no real desire to transcend it. This ultimately makes its narrative feel more predictable and mawkish than it should be, especially when Gracey depicts the relationship between Williams and Appleton. Credit where credit is due: there’s a rather tragic musical number that contrasts their initial meeting with a decision that ultimately ended their relationship, after Nicole was forced to abort her pregnancy with Williams’ child from the All Saints record company.
Representing such a scene through song may bring about complex feelings, but Gracey directs this scene with enough compassion that it doesn’t seem at all manipulative (compared to how he frequently pushed buttons in The Greatest Showman). The cross-cut between the beginning and ending of the most hopeful part of Williams’ life is starkly visualized, even if the relationship gets stuck in cyclical platitudes afterwards (apart from his initial meeting with Oasis members Liam and Noel Gallagher, which got the biggest laughs out of me).
Then, there’s Robbie’s relationship with his distant father, Peter (Steve Pemberton), which is taken out of every single ‘long lost father has regrets about not being there for his son’ trope possible. While Pemberton does his best with the material he’s been given, the dialogues feel all-too-familiar, resulting in some of the more emotional sequences between the two falling flat. Thankfully, there are more visual-driven sequences than traditional ones, but the latter has the tendency to dilute some of Better Man’s strongest moments, and stretching the runtime to a conclusion where all the heartstrings should theoretically be pulled (a “full circle” moment between Robbie and Peter singing Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”), but doesn’t really do anything.
Still, it remains a better-directed (and ultimately better) movie than The Greatest Showman, and demonstrates how much Gracey has improved as a filmmaker, not just in helming musical sequences that allow the choreographies to be seen (unlike the aggressive TikTok-styled editing of the P.T. Barnum picture), but in depicting such a dark, but ultimately life-affirming story. It should’ve been way crazier than it is, but Better Man still remains a crowd-pleasing affair that, despite its unusual framing device, will touch the hearts of millions of moviegoers who will buy a ticket for it this Christmas, provided they are willing to engage in a bit of monkey business.
