Better Man (2024, dir. Michael Gracey)

by Jack Martin | Dec 27, 2024

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 134 mins

UK Distributor: Entertainment Film Distributors

UK Release Date: 26 December 2024

WHO’S IN BETTER MAN?

Robbie Williams, Jonno Davies, Steve Pemberton, Alison Steadman, Damon Herriman, Raechelle Banno, Anthony Hayes, Kate Mulvany, Frazer Hadfield, Jake Simmance, Liam Head, Jesse Hyde, Chase Vollenweider, Adam Tucker, Chris Gun, Jack McMinn, Jamie Condon

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Michael Gracey (director, writer, producer), Oliver Cole and Simon Gleeson (writers), Paul Currie, Jules Daly, Coco Xiaolu Ma and Craig McMahon (producers), Batu Sener (composer), Erik Wilson (cinematographer), Martin Connor, Jeff Groth, Lee Smith and Spencer Susser (editors)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

The life and career of Robbie Williams – as performed by a CGI chimpanzee…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON BETTER MAN?

The strangest thing about director Michael Gracey’s Better Man isn’t that it’s about the life story of Robbie Williams – a name that few people outside the UK are heavily familiar with – nor is it even the fact that Williams is portrayed not by some hot young talent but by a motion-captured CGI chimpanzee. Rather, it’s that it actually, irrevocably works.

On paper, substituting one of Britain’s most popular acts for a chimp sounds like pure folly, the result of a coked-up brainstorm by someone who watched a combination of Rocketman, The Greatest Showman (Gracey’s last feature) and BBC’s Planet Earth whilst on the mother of all highs. But the switch ends up evolving the narrative significantly, for it allows the viewer to not only see Williams in the same way that he often views himself, but it creates a much darker and more satirical commentary on the pitfalls of fame that few other music biopics manage to nail.

Williams narrates the film as his younger self (performed by Jonno Davies) experiences early heartbreak as his self-centred father (Steve Pemberton) abandons his family in pursuit of fame, then teenage joy as he gets accepted into a new boy band known as Take That, followed by an elongated period of arrested development as Williams dabbles in drugs and alcohol, failed relationships, clinical depression and alarming self-hatred once he’s kicked out of the band and trying to make it on his own as a successful solo artist. And to reiterate, throughout all of this he is always inexplicably a chimpanzee, one that looks like something out of the Planet of the Apes movies (and funnily enough, the effects in this movie were done by Wētā FX, the same company who worked on the recent Planet of the Apes entries, which also explains why the effects here are pretty good).

Of course, there is a reason why Robbie Williams is looking more simian than usual in Better Man. The idea reportedly stemmed from soundbites wherein the artist said that when on stage, especially with his former Take That bandmates, he always felt like a performing monkey, a concept that Gracey – also a co-writer with Oliver Cole and Simon Gleeson – runs with while also refusing to sanitise Williams’ dark descent into addiction and psychological torment. So, on more than one occasion, you’ll be watching a CGI chimpanzee downing bottles of God knows what, snorting endless lines of cocaine, in bed with numerous naked women, and experiencing vivid hallucinations of disapproving versions of himself (also chimps) in the crowds of his shows. In this respect, substituting the central human figure for an animal ends up being a creative godsend, for it highlights the cruelty of fame as people like Williams are taken advantage of by those seeking to further their own careers, even his own father who only occasionally shows up to bask in his son’s glory and then sod off again, and are then left to deal with their own demons without the proper care, like animals in cages at the zoo.

This grim but necessary depiction also ties into how the film really does not shy away from how grungy and unappealing the famous lifestyle can be. Though it’s far from the first musician biopic to depict such rampant excess in the subject’s path to fame, Better Man is distinct in that it is shot and edited with the intensity of something like Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting or even Kneecap from earlier this year, complete with gritty cinematography that’s a far cry from the more polished look of Gracey’s previous film, and shows how disorienting the fast-paced environment is, where you totally get why someone like him would need drugs and alcohol to simply keep up with it all. Gracey’s direction allows the viewer to experience this wild and unforgiving journey by the side of Williams (and his simian avatar) himself, whether it’s in the numerous song-and-dance sequences – by the way, Better Man is also a musical, with recontextualised versions of Williams’s songs dominating the soundtrack – or the much more sinister moments in which he isn’t exactly presented in the best light, even when he isn’t under the heavy influence of various substances.

However, the key to Better Man working despite its out-there hook is the fact that, amidst all the terrible things you are witnessing as this version of Robbie Williams is slowly succumbing to the pitfalls of fame, you actually do care about this person. The script does a fine job of making Williams empathetic and dramatically engaging, to where after a while you barely even notice that he happens to be a CGI chimpanzee, for you’re so caught up in his journey that you are able to look past the motion-capture suit and see the human performing underneath it. Occasionally, the film falls victim to moments of indulgence, especially during an otherwise heart-wrenching climax that could well be seen by some as an overwhelming moment of vanity, but by and large you definitely feel for the ape as he experiences all sorts of highs – including a fantastically-executed one-shot sequence set to Williams’s “Rock DJ” – and the lowest of lows, which without getting into exact details causes the film to provide a phone number to a suicide prevention hotline during the ending credits.

For all the directions a Robbie Williams biopic could have gone, the one where he’s a monkey the whole time might well be the most insane – and also the most ingenious, for it makes Better Man so much, erm, better than it could have been.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Better Man is a daring and powerful biopic of Robbie Williams that quickly overcomes its unusual hook – the fact that he’s a CGI chimpanzee the whole time – to present a refreshingly dark depiction of fame and its many pitfalls.