BETTER MAN
FOUR STARS A young boy dreams of being a pop star, but fame and fortune isn't all it's cracked up to be. Can the boy be a better man? #BETTERMAN
Starring Robbie Williams, Jonno Davies
Among many standout moments in Michael Gracey’s thrilling biopic of pop icon Robbie Williams, the spectacular song-and-dance routine in London’s Regent Street accompanied set to a remix of Rock DJ stands out the most. All the wit, entertainment, chutzpah, timing and cheek that has defined his career is distilled in five emotionally supercharged and stunningly choreographed minutes.
Not that it renders the rest of Michael Gracey's BETTER MAN irrelevant, there’s still a lot to watch in this no holds barred biographical musical about Williams as played by a chimp. That's right, an all singing, all dancing CGI-animated anthropomorphic chimpanzee. With a wink at the camera, it symbolises his self-perceived "less evolved" nature.
BETTER MAN traces Williams' journey from his early days as dewey-eyed, dad-adoring primate in Stoke-on-Trent to global stardom, highlighting his troubled relationship with his absent father, the tumultuous years with boy band Take That and his subsequent solo career all drenched in a lifelong addiction to drugs, alcohol and mental health challenges.
Having Williams hide behind his chimpanzee persona is creative brilliance. The artifice gives us a new avenue to explore a well-worn story (does every super-successful British pop star have debilitating daddy issues?), there’s obvious metaphorical value and the whole thing is wonderfully disarming as it shoves BETTER MAN just a little off kilter. There are those who dismiss the device is simply self serving and they’re right. That’s Williams, that’s always been him and that’s why it works so well, allowing both subject and director a frankness they’d not otherwise reach.
There’s an audaciousness at work here that is a natural fit for a man who may (or may not) have been emotionally stunted by fame as a teenager. There’s also a surprising honesty to the story beyond drugs and sex and booze. BETTER MAN is surprisingly emotional. Some artistic choices have polarised viewers (you can’t help feel that’s why they were made) but they’re choices that make the film so much, ahem, better, than so many pop-star-biopics that came before.
In one hand it offers an introspective look into the complexities of fame and personal identity through the lens of one of Britain's most enigmatic pop stars. In the other is Williams holding a mirror. And winking.
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