Reviewing this film, it is hard to separate the art from the commercial. Because if I was to contemplate the least commercial film possible in 2024, it might sound like this: a British pop star, who failed to become popular in America, making a biopic about his social dysfunction. Also, he’s going to be played by a CGI chimp.
A CGI chimp.
Were commercial and artistic conditions different in the modern cinematic world this would be a bold artistic decision. In the modern context, it’s mostly baffling.
Buy Better Man 4K UHDBut… I’m a rara avis in the United States. I’m a Robbie Williams fan. At least for his first few albums. And I’ve seen the man play live in a small venue. I saw the guy at the Mayan in 1999 where he played an energetic, engaging show. If this biopic is anything to go by, he was living in something of a hellscape at the time. Still, he sounded good.
Better Man has a Robbie Williams voiceover (largely sourced from interview tapes) but the character is played, from youth to maturity, by a CGI chimpanzee. The notion seems to be that this is Robbie Wiliams’ vision of himself. To the world he’s a pretty boy, but in his mind he’s an ugly ape. It’s so high concept. I can’t imagine how anyone who bankrolled this film thought it would work commercially.
And it didn’t. The film was a wild flop, making (according to Wikipedia) a little more than $20 million off a $120-million budget, which I believe is understated, like all movie budgets are fudged.
But it’s really good. It’s a great musical entertainment and has a compelling story about the limited power of fame to make one happy.
Young Robert idolizes his father, a cop who wants to be an entertainer. And the second he gets his chance, he abandons his family for penny ante gigs and anything that doesn’t entail being a father. Still, Robert worships him and his gods, the chief of which is Frank Sinatra. So, the second there’s an audition for anything, even something as out of fashion as a boyband, Robert signs up. And gets in.
It seems like everything he’s ever wanted… except he doesn’t get to do anything. He’s not Robert anymore, but Robbie. He can sing, he can dance. He’s the favorite of Take That. But he can’t write songs, he can’t express himself, and he’s making little money.
So, he quits (after being fired) and tries to stand out on his own. But it’s not until he hooks up with Guy Chambers that someone puts his scribbled words into real songs. He tries to find what’s real inside of Robbie, and that reality makes him bigger than Take That ever was.
But one of the cheeky things about the film is the constant hovering presence of the real Robert. He and Guy Chambers have had falling outs, and falling ins, and the film makes it clear he’s only saying what is legally possible, given various… agreements.
For a historian, that’s problematic. For a film reviewer, it doesn’t much matter. Because this is not a movie about reality, but the feelings of a man who has idolized fame his entire life, and found it brings, and does not solve, problems.
There’s a great sequence in the film the exemplifies this, when Take That first gets together. Take That are in ascendance, and so they dance, all around London. The music is “Rock DJ” (a Robbie Williams song, definitely not Take That) but the joke of the wildly elaborate sequence is that the dancing boy band members are constantly inconveniencing everyone around them. They’re dancing while civilians are crashing cars and getting knocked over. It’s great to be a star… except for all the collateral damage.
This notion gets stronger and more poignant as the film moves through Robbie’s life, as he becomes more successful and more alienated from the people who love him. The culmination of this is in the song “Angels”, which was maybe Robbie’s biggest song (though not his biggest hit, it only got to #4 on the charts). He filled stadiums in Europe with this song, which I like but is kind of a sappy pop song. But its meaning in Better Man makes it so much more layered.
Because this film, though filled with music, is not about music, it’s about addiction. Addiction to substances, and addiction to fame. Robbie is taught addiction to fame from his father, a minor-league talent who abandons him early on, but taught him that entertainers were gods. Robbie wanted to be a god. And when praise or fans couldn’t make him feel like that, he’d drink, snort, and inject it.
All of this is very heady stuff for a biopic of an essentially minor British star (minor enough to have moved to L.A. for anonymity). He’s probably best known to Americans for his minor hit “Millenium”, or for singing “Beyond the Sea” at the end of Finding Nemo.
But it’s not a silly or surface-level film. Even the conceit of making the main character a CGI ape isn’t a marketing gimmick. It’s really an anti-marketing gimmick, because anyone interested in the story would likely say, “Why are you doing this?”
Why becomes clear because Robbie’s chimp form is a kind of self-loathing. He’s a dancing monkey for the public, but also a complete creature of impulse. An animal. Thematically sound, commercially daft.
Which does not stop it from being a creative triumph. First, the monkey effects are phenomenal. Implemented by WETA, the chimp Robbie Williams never looks out of place in scenes filled with humans. And there’s never a wink or a nod to his CGI status. He’s just there, and eventually you get used to him.
And the story told is compelling, and darker and grimmer than one might think. What seems like a romantic connection between Robbie and his woman ends with a bitterly resented abortion and more drunkenness and debauchery. Every step forward brings him closer to a downward spiral. Even the triumphant concert near the climax of the movie shows that literally stabbing your demons doesn’t end them. You still need to go to rehab and ask forgiveness.
There was little chance of this being a commercially successful film. The subject is niche (guy famous 20 years ago biopic), the format is niche (musical from songs not popular in America). Better Man is, against these odds, a beautiful, moving film. It’s a regular tear-jerker about a deeply flawed man who learns to forgive himself, and more importantly, forgives those who helped develop his flaws. It’s a weird monkey man musical which nobody is going to watch, but they should, because it’s great.
Better Man has been released by Paramount Presents on 4K UHD. The release contains a 4K UHD, a Blu-ray with the film, and a digital code. Extras include “Let Me Entertain You: Making of Better Man” (32 min), a featurette on the making of the film, and “Monkey Business: The VFX” (15 min), which features the special effects team at Weta who worked on the incredible visual effects.
