Better Man (2024) Review: The Otherwise Familiar Music Biopic Gets a Lively and Even Poignant Cinematic Experience
Robbie Williams’ rise to fame from joining Take That to experiencing solo successes, his bad-boy image, and personal demons made him a great subject for a biopic treatment in Better Man. Besides, he is a global pop star who made his name in the UK and other countries such as Asia, Australia and Brazil. And yet, despite his decade-long success with the boy band and solo career, he can’t seem to crack the US market, which explains why Better Man did awful numbers at the box office, resulting in one of the biggest flops in 2024 for a biopic that cost a whopping US$110 million.
The biggest reason for such a hefty budget lies in using the combination of CGI and mo-cap performance to turn Robbie Williams into a chimpanzee, which I can’t help but wonder as if this computer-generated chimp who looks like he has escaped from Planet of the Apes franchise to become a singer instead. It was an unconventional move for a biopic that eschews the tradition of showing the real man himself and I mean, his actual appearance.
I admit it was weird at first seeing Robbie right from the beginning in a chimpanzee look when he was just a boy at Stoke-on-Trent in the early ’80s getting humiliated by the bullies while playing football. But when he’s at home, he has his grandmother Betty (Alison Steadman) who always loves him and his father Peter (Steve Pemberton), who enjoys sing-a-long Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” playing on the television with his son. So, the oddball decision of turning Robbie into a chimp may sound like a gimmick but as the story progresses, it’s understandable why is being portrayed as such in the first place.
Amidst the standard-issue music biopic tropes that The Greatest Showman‘s Michael Gracey, who also co-wrote the screenplay alongside Simon Gleeson and Oliver Cole tread on familiar grounds focusing on Robbie’s rise and fall and vice versa, he is always a cheeky one and even rebellious that reflects some of the chimp’s personality traits. When he quickly jumps on the opportunity to audition for the boy band in his teenage years, he already shows his attitude by labelling Nigel Martin-Smith (Damon Herriman), the band manager who decides on the talent picks in a voiceover as a “first-class c*nt“.
Well, Robbie is eventually accepted as part of the boy band and soon, he meets the rest of the members including Gary Barlow (Jake Simmance), Howard Donald (Liam Head), Mark Owen (Jesse Hyde) and Jason Orange (Chase Vollenweider). Nigel named them Take That and soon he arranged the band’s performances, first in the gay clubs performing “I Found Heaven” before they became the heartthrobs among many fan girls. As their fame rises to stardom, it isn’t long before Robbie starts to show his ugly side (e.g. drug abuse), leading to his eventual break-up with the band.
The second half of Better Man, which focuses mainly on Robbie’s downfall including his spiralling addiction and his short-lived relationship with All Saints’ Nicole Appleton (Raechelle Banno) suffers from an erratic pace and at times, meandering around like the movie is going around in circles. Still, Gracey manages to pick up the pace once Robbie finally gets his act together making a comeback.
The CGI is top-notch and I’m glad seeing Robbie as a chimp doesn’t distract me, thanks to his larger-than-life persona. Gracey also deserves credit for turning this otherwise predictable music biopic as lively as possible, namely the showstopping moment of Robbie and his members performing “Rock DJ” on the streets. The director even pulls in a few emotional weights into his movie with not one but two poignant moments accompanied by one of Robbie’s most signature hits “Angels” and his heartfelt rendition of “My Way”.
