Better Man Movie Review and Movie Summary (2024)

Who is Robbie Williams? Sure, that’s the question most Yanks might ask when given the elevator pitch for “Better Man,” the latest from “The Greatest Showman” director Michael Gracey. (His huge success in the U.K., both as a member of the British boy band Take That and his own chart-topping solo career, never quite translated across the pond.) But in classic music-biopic fashion, “Better Man” is also concerned with such human-behind-the-music insight required by this kind of imagery: The rough, working-class childhood, the disapproving father figure, the rollercoaster of sex, drugs and market forces that make and break our most iconic pop culture figures. But Gracey, Williams and crew throw their mightiest curveball away from these tropes in the film’s opening seconds, as Williams purrs in voiceover, “I’m going to show you how I really see myself”—an anthropomorphic ape, rendered in pitch-perfect CGI. It’s “Planet of the Apes” meets “Top of the Pops,” and that’s just the first magic trick Gracey’s touching, effective chronicle wants to throw your way.

After all, Williams has described himself in interviews as feeling like a performing monkey, and a “little less evolved” than his fellow humans; this shows in his real life, as the youngest and most cheeky member of Take That, known for his public antics and well-documented history of drug use and partying. But the secret to the sauce is that Gracey and “Better Man” take this gimmick completely seriously: there’s very little lampshade, nor is there a transformative moment where he becomes genuine Robbie Williams. This is the furry skin Williams feels trapped in, and every gesture carries that dissonance. Aided by a clever, lithe mo-cap performance from Jonno Davies (with Williams providing his own soulful voiceover), the Williams we see on screen is as much a simulacrum as the real human, existing somewhere between human, the beast and the computer creation. In just a few moments, he acts and dresses like a person: only a few times does the film allow a distressed Williams to let out a howling scream or puff out his chest. “Better Man” is about the gap between how people see him and how he sees himself, and the ways his personal demons get in the way of enjoying the success his own wildness brought him.

Gracey, whose rise made “The Greatest Showman” one of the biggest musical smashes of the century, here finds the right balance between naturalism and sensationalism. Some scenes play out like a Mike Leigh movie; but then it’s on to another hyperactive, exuberant musical sequence that recontextualizes Williams’ deeply personal lyrics to mark specific highs and lows in his life. Gracey’s staging is remarkable in its fluidity: some recall the stark intimacy of “Sing Street,” others feel like action sequences. (“Come Undone” sees him race away from Take That after his antics get him kicked out of the band; it shifts from a “Fast and Furious”-level car chase to the evocative image of Williams drowning in a lake, surrounded by floating paparazzi circling and flashing around him like electric eels). His set at Knebworth turns into an all-apes battle royale straight out of “Love Death & Robots” as Williams literally battles his demons.

But the real showstopper is “Rock DJ”, a foot-stomping one-shot sequence that takes us through several eras of Take That’s meteoric rise, with hundreds of dancers filling Regent Street as the band spin and switch from an iconic costume change to another one. If you don’t watch any other scene from this movie, watch this one. It is remarkable. It’s reminiscent of Dexter Fletcher’s admirable work on “Rocketman,” another warts-and-sequins-and-all account of a famous British pop star who took bold turns to escape the quicksand of the biopic’s typical rhythms.

Where “Better Man” threatens to lose steam is when it apes the structural patterns of other music biographies: the rise-fall-rise of his success can become a bit repetitive in theory as he creates his musical identity, engages in his own Lennon -McCartney feud with Take That frontman Gary Barlow (Jake Simmance), finds and loses love and claws his way back into the limelight. But Gracey messes with the staging to keep us interested. Williams’ demons come out in the form of intrusively imagined copies of himself staring out at him from the crowd; they haunt him, filling him with self-doubt that drives him to run after booze, coke and groupies, much to the chagrin of his girlfriend, All Saints’ Nicole Appleton (Raechelle Banno, doing a lot with a little here). That this dark period, as Dewey Cox would say, plays with a CG monkey instead of the real McCoy feels strangely appropriate; Williams gets to play pathos while leaving a knowing remove from both his real image and the audience itself. It’s a smart move that allows him to vulnerably share his lows while downplaying the pomp and circumstance of his highs.

It helps, of course, that Williams takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to his own legend, always half-struggling with the feeling that he was never meant to be this famous. There’s just enough of a satirical bent here to shake it loose from the trappings of the genre, without making it quite “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.” It’s ridiculous because Robbie is ridiculous and he wouldn’t have it any other way. Even in his lowest moments, Williams is ready to recognize the innate absurdity of his suffering: his bottom takes the form of a monkey crying over lines of coke while he’s dressed in a space-age grease-sucking vacuum suit.

You won’t see another music biopic quite like “Better Man,” regardless of your level of familiarity with the subject. There’s an abundance of charm here that helps sell the nonsensical gimmick; Gracey moves us through the life of the Cliff’s Notes of Williams quickly enough that you barely stop to process the image of a fully clothed chimpanzee getting a handjob from a groupie in a nightclub. To say nothing of the strange sensation of gushing over a tuxedo monkey wearing “My Way” as a spiritual reclamation of his own celebrity. It’s cheeky, in your face and on your nose. But it’s Robbie Williams. Could a biopic of him play out differently? Come now. Let him entertain you.