I’d like to invite you behind the curtain for a moment. This is my last new movie review of 2024, and I’ve reviewed so many formulaic musical biopics this year that I’m pretty sure my reviews are also becoming formulaic. How many times can one critic point out that Hollywood is still unironically copying the same tired beats that “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” ridiculed nearly 20 years ago before the finger starts pointing back in their own direction? Isn’t it just as tiresome to make the same complaints over and over as it is to do the same things that are worth complaining about, over and over? And over and over?
Well, no. No it’s not. I’m just working with the material you’re giving me, Hollywood. If you keep making the same movie over and over, the same commentary will usually apply. If you want me to say something different about the tired musical biopic genre you, yourself, actually have to do something differently. Like, I dunno, making a conventional Robbie Williams biopic where Robbie Williams is played by a computer-generated chimpanzee.
Anyway, “Better Man” is a conventional Robbie Williams biopic where Robbie Williams is played by a computer-generated chimpanzee. It’s genuinely amazing how much of a difference that makes. (The ape is mo-capped by Jonno Davies; Williams does his own voice.) I’m pretty sure the filmmakers would like us to be impressed by Williams’ humility in letting himself be literally dehumanized on camera, but that’s not why this works. It works because “Better Man” wears its artifice completely on its sleeve, never once pretending that this is the “real” Robbie Williams story. I’m sure there’s a lot like his real life, but it’s just so much easier to accept a film’s flaws when the film is never quite “real” enough that its fakery can ruin the illusion. Because in “Better Man,” the illusion is that this is the Robbie Williams story at all.
Williams may need a bit of an introduction to American audiences. He’s one of the best-selling musicians in history, but aside from a handful of noteworthy hit singles, like “Rock DJ” and “Millennium,” he’s never made quite as much of an impression in the States as he has in the United Kingdom and the rest of the world. Some people are put off by his brash celebrity history — a problem most superstars seem to run into eventually, whether they’ve earned it or not — but there are a lot of people who love the hell out of him, and there are a lot of reasons to be a fan.
“Better Man” takes the “Rocketman” approach to biopics, operating as a conventional musical where characters break into song whether they’re on stage or not. It also isn’t afraid to take Williams’ songs and play them out of order, because the year they were released isn’t necessarily the same time Williams was going through that drama. This frees the movie to tell its story and figure out which songs fit into the narrative organically, instead of twisting the narrative into pretzels just to make sure Williams sings “Rock DJ” in the same year he actually wrote it.
The story of his life is in many ways bog standard. He was a child who dreamed about being a star. He had a father, played by Steven Pemberton, who abandoned his family for a chance at extremely modest success as a small-time crooner and master of ceremonies. Williams answered an open call for a boy band, bombed the audition, but realized that you can compensate for your failings on stage by being a cheeky show-off and got the gig anyway. I’m not sure if that’s “good” advice, but it sure is practical because yeah, that generally is how celebrity works.
Williams falls prey to clinical depression and alcoholism and gets kicked out of the band, and decides to go solo like he always wanted. But he’s still kind of an ass. Eventually he realizes that what people really respond to isn’t class clowning, it’s sincerity — or at least sincerity tempered with class clowning. Eventually he reexamines his abysmal and complicated relationship with his father and wrestles with his demons. Along the way he sings a lot of songs. Look, this plot isn’t going to blow anyone’s mind.
Fortunately, “Better Man” has a director who knows exactly what to do with a story that’s kinda bulls–t. Michael Gracey is the filmmaker who turned the life of despicable monster P.T. Barnum into the feel-good movie event of 2017 with “The Greatest Showman.” (If you thought that was a cute and inspiring movie about the power of outsiders, found family and entertainment, you should really look up the actual life story of P.T. Barnum.)
“Better Man” takes full advantage of Gracey’s infectious musical zealotry, turning in a bravura, rapturous film with one of the best filmed and choreographed numbers of the 21st century as its centerpiece. (Or it’s one-thirderpiece. I’m not sure if a scene that plays around the 30-minute mark qualifies as the center of anything.) Williams’ music is varied enough that Gracey is able to transform his songs into graceful ballets, elaborate oners, tragic melodramas and a badass action sequence in which Williams violently murders the parts of himself that represent suicidal ideation.
That’s a lot. Williams doesn’t have anywhere near as much darkness in his life as Barnum did, but ironically it’s Williams who gets led down the grimmer cinematic path. Gracey may film “Better Man” through a thick veneer of showbiz glitz but — thanks in large part to the fact that, again, the star is a CGI chimpanzee — the film’s heaviest scenes sneak up on you and pack a wallop. These are moments that in a more conventionally presented musical biopic would be undone by their right-on-cue familiarity, but the artifice makes “Better Man’s” sincerity easier to swallow. Weird.
I’m not sure if people who don’t know Williams will love him after “Better Man,” but I can bet they’ll be humming his songs, and probably rewatching the film’s many fabulous numbers as soon as clips pop up on YouTube. “Better Man,” like this year’s “Kneecap” and to a lesser, more laid back extent “Piece By Piece,” proves there’s still some life in the formula. You just have to be willing to show off — and be a little cheeky.
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