LOS ANGELES, Dec. 21 (UPI) — Robbie Williams is the latest subject of a musician biopic. Better Manin theaters Dec. 25, takes such a wild approach that it easily stands apart from films like Walk the Line and Bohemian Rhapsody.
Williams got the performing bug at age 9 in a school performance of The Pirates of Penzance. As a teenager, he auditioned to be in a boy band and landed a spot in Take That.
Williams went solo after friction with the band but still struggled to write original lyrics. By Better Man‘s accounts, Williams had a similar cinematic trajectory as Johnny Cash or Freddie Mercury.
However, Better Man represents Williams as a talking monkey. Director Michael Gracey explains in a pre-film video that he took Williams literally when the singer called himself a performing monkey.
So this is a Planet of the Apes visual effect. It’s Williams’ voice but Jonno Davies performing the reference footage, along with a few other performers for elaborate dance scenes.
The film never gets used to having a monkey as the lead character, a real-life figure who is still alive at that. It never ceases to be off-putting, especially when Williams sings and dances elaborate choreography, and that is part of the film’s power.
Now, when Williams goes through the stereotypical spiral into drugs and alcohol, watching a monkey recreate those scenes is avant-garde art. The visual effect captures Williams’ charm and emotional turmoil, so it’s not a joke.
It only becomes more shocking the more famous Williams gets. Once he starts sporting revealing dance outfits, even more fur is on display.
It’s not even a movie star embodying Williams. There’s neither the real Williams nor an actor’s persona to attach to the film, removing yet another layer of artifice but replacing it with an even more jarring one.
As if one monkey isn’t daring enough, Williams’ inner demons are also visualized as monkeys. So many scenes boast monkey Williams staring at disapproving monkeys too.
Other biopic traditions include a scene where Williams sings a rough demo of his future hit “Something Beautiful” and confronting his absent father (Steve Pemberton) over abandoning him. The biopic tradition of showing photos of the real Williams during the credits actually breaks the spell when audiences can see he was not an actual monkey.
The monkey is the boldest leap Better Man takes but it is not the only one. A disco ball effect lights vast outdoor locations, and the film includes a climactic action scene.
Musical numbers are dynamic, including a romp through the streets of London in an unbroken take. A duet between Williams and lover Nicole Appleton (Raechelle Banno) evokes Astaire and Rogers.
The film embodies Williams’ irreverent spirit, as if a drama starring a monkey could ever be reverent. In his narration, Williams is self-deprecating, and some of the dance numbers blatantly injure pedestrians in their choreography.
The new arrangements of Williams’ songs add dimensions to his hits.
Better Man is bold cinema. The audacity alone is worth celebrating, but the fact that it works is a miracle.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.