I’ve seen all the musical biopics, from this year’s A Complete Unknown and Back to Black (bad, but not as bad as some say) to old-school selections like The Buddy Holly Story, Bird, St. Louis Blues, and loads of others. Due to my being an American who, at the turn of the millennium, was snootily ignoring pop music, Better Man is the first time I’ve watched something from this genre where, if I’m being totally honest, I wasn’t sure if it was actually based on a real person. It’s a little ironic because this entire film hinges on how the rocket ship of extreme fame nearly ripped the English musician Robbie Williams apart. Sorry to tell ya, pal, but not one of your songs rang a bell.
This does not mean Better Man, which hits theaters Dec. 25, isn’t any good. It is good, actually, even if it’s not all that original. Not original? you say. Isn’t the lead role a talking ape? Yes, that’s true—the visual playfulness is a big reason why this movie works, but the ape thing is really just a splash of bright paint on a very familiar canvas. After about 10 minutes, you kind of forget you’re watching a computer-generated chimpanzee instead of a real person.
The reason for the gimmick, as the very cheeky (I think I’m saying that right) Robbie tells us in voice-over, is that we, the audience, are going to see Robbie as he sees himself. And despite his alleged famous persona as a motor-mouthed extrovert, inside he’s full of crippling doubt and self-destructive behavior.
Robbie tells us he was born making jazz hands, which was uncomfortable for his mum (ba-dum-bum!). But seriously, he loves to entertain, and that’s due a little bit to his genes. The only time he gets any affection from his father is when they are crooning Sinatra hits together. Dad is an amateur night showman who abandons the family (hard-working mum and saintly nan) to pursue his nightclub dreams, only to show up again when his son becomes a star.
At age 15, Robbie auditions to be in a boy band. He’s an OK singer and a spirited dancer, but it’s his brash attitude that wins over the producer. (He says if he didn’t make an obnoxious wink at the right moment, there’d be no movie about his life.)
Soon he’s added as something of a mascot for the group Take That, which Google tells me is real. Despite their young age, they are booked at gay clubs, which helps them build a following, get a record contract, and hit the top of the charts. (Despite many smashes in the United Kingdom, their only song to chart in the U.S. was 1995’s "Back for Good.“)
Director Michael Gracey (The Greatest Showman) creates a series of wild, high-fructose sequences involving dance routines and montages to plunge you into the life of a pop star. Robbie wants Take That to record his own songs, but the spotlight belongs to a more polished singer, a kid named Gary Barlow. Robbie realizes he’s an all-or-nothing guy and soon leaves the group (or is he fired?).
Though the voice-over makes some very quick references to his enjoying the intimate company of both men and women, we only see him with women, including a big love affair with Nicole Appleton, another packaged singer from the group All Saints. (She later dumps his a-- for Liam Gallagher of Oasis. I’ve heard of him.) This whole time, Robbie is gobbling more pills, snorting powders, and wearing ridiculous rubber suits with vacuum attachments to reduce his increasing corpulence. He’s clearly on a major collision course.
By the time the reckoning happens—yes, the chimp goes to rehab—you find yourself really rooting for this guy. Much of that is to do with the very honest voice acting and narration provided by Robbie Williams himself, who could be the most self-aware pop star ever. “It might be cabaret, but it’s world-class cabaret and I’m the f---ing best at it,” he says in defense of his not-particularly-great music. (I’d define it as Diet George Michael, and that’s being generous.) Then he adds a “f--- yourselves.” It may not seem so on the page, but the way he says it is incredibly charming.
