Cinema as a kind of self-portraiture has a long, rich tradition. In the 21st century alone, there have been a variety of excellent works that capture how a creator sees themselves. Charlie Kaufman wrote a film centered on a writer bearing his name with 2002's Adaptation. Zia Anger revisited her first feature with last year's My First Film. Brady Corbet wrestles with the struggles of creating art with the recent The Brutalist. However, none of these artists did what English pop star Robbie Williams and company did with Better Man — they made him a CGI chimp. Alas, if only any of those insightful, self-reflective filmmakers had helmed a film with this unique twist, they might have had a real shot at making something similarly interesting.
Instead, Better Man is a hollow miss directed by Michael Gracey, who previously made the slightly amusing though far from great The Greatest Showman. The filmmaker attempts to coast off the hook of seeing a monkey meander his way through a musical biopic, and admittedly gets a decent amount of mileage out of this gimmick... that is until the already so-so script (written by Gracey with newcomers Simon Gleeson and Oliver Cole) stalls out right as its subject does.
The reason why Williams is a monkey through all this — that he supposedly sees himself as being less "evolved" than other people — is less a guiding thematic light about his psyche than it is a shallow stand-in for what could have actually been a subversive vision. Though it boasts some impressive effects by Weta FX (who made fully believable humanoid primate characters for the recent Planet of the Apes movies), there is a prevailing emptiness underneath. It's a surface-level film lacking in the needed narrative bones, ultimately feeling like Williams is again nothing more than a dancing monkey trapped doing the shaky routine required of him to sell a banal, basic biopic in another skin.
This all begins with him as a young lad getting a glimpse of the perils of pursuing fame when his father abandons him. Williams then decides to audition for and becomes part of the pop group Take That. They soon become a hit, but Williams can't seem to find happiness, instead spiraling out of control while developing a drug addiction. It's in familiar moments like these where you jolt awake and realize you're watching a monkey shoot up, but it doesn't change the fact that you've seen this story sans-CGI primate a thousand times. The constant voiceover spells everything out as it all just goes through the motions.
Even as there are a handful of well-staged dance numbers, the music itself is forgettable. The film is partly about this — as Williams didn't catch on outside the UK — but that doesn't change the fact that there aren't any memorable tunes to hang its hat on. While the recent A Complete Unknown was not a particularly good musical biopic either, at least it's great listening to Bob Dylan's music. There is no such silver lining here.
To call Better Man a cheeky provocation is to oversell what is an occasionally bemusing and bittersweet yet ultimately milquetoast biopic. Yes, having Williams be a CGI monkey is certainly different, but the film itself still dances to far too familiar a tune. It's all about the rise and fall of its musical figure, coloring within the well-worn lines of musical biopics that could use far more of a shaking up than this. That we hear the British pop singer candidly musing at one point about how becoming wildly famous merely requires cheekiness rather than being good unintentionally captures the general ethos of the film quite well. Better Man is a cheeky film in small bursts, but it falls short of being good.
The most engaging aspect of the film comes when Williams attempts to face down his past, the insecurities that troubled him and his persistent anxieties as a performer. This reaches a peak in a brawl within his mind near the end. It's where you can see the bold film Better Man is battling to be. It's brutal and bonkers seeing various monkeys duke it out while still being more revealing about Williams than anything before it. That this comes as Williams launches off the stage and dives more fully into surreal territory shows how the film's unfulfilled promise is revealed outside the confines of the familiar musical biopic formula. The letdown always comes as he returns to the narrow stage to dance his rote little monkey dance once more.
Better Man
