Director: Michael Gracey
Cast: Robbie Williams, Jonno Davies, Steve Pemberton, Alison Steadman
Screenplay: Simon Gleeson, Oliver Cole, Michael Gracey
134 mins. Rated R for drug use, pervasive language, sexual content, nudity and some violent content.

Better Man is a risky venture, but director Michael Gracey is a risk-taking filmmaker, having helmed an original musical about con man and human monster P.T. Barnum with The Greatest Showman, and it succeeded in a struggling landscape of feature film musicals, so who’s to say he can’t do it again with an arguably riskier idea? Well, I’m here to say that, no, Better Man just doesn’t work, despite everything its director is trying.

Better Man follows the journey of British pop singer Robbie Williams, played by Williams and Jonno Davies (Kingsman: The Secret Service). More than that, though, Better Man recreates Williams as a CGI chimpanzee. As Williams frequently puts it, he’s always felt “less-evolved” and appears in this computer-generated form, though the people around him never bring it up.

Better Man is such a fascinating concept, and the movie actually opens pretty strong, but much like the Pharrell Williams documentary from this year (Piece by Piece, which recreated its material with Legos), Better Man never fully justifies its gimmick. Here, it’s more egregious because I feel like the material and story is actively damaged by this choice. It’s really unusual to see a woman jacking off a CGI chimpanzee under the guise of it being Robbie Williams (though I would argue that sequences isn’t necessary to begin with). It’s also frustrating when the film showcases some of its more emotional scenes (like a funeral late in the film) had no impact for me seeing Robbie Williams in this computer-generated chimp. The recent Planet of the Apes films had to work very hard at accomplishing the impact for their CG characters, but Better Man misses this mark because we’re also meant to view this from a true-story perspective, and I find that the performance as Robbie Williams can’t hold a candle to Caesar from those films, as well as the likelihood that the subject material just isn’t very good.

Now, to be fair, I’m not all that aware of Robbie Williams as the musical superstar that he is in Europe, but the more that Better Man progressed, the less interesting I found its central star. His humor fell flat, and the film’s version of him was frequently unlikeable. Most of the fascinating and resonant moments were brushed over, like the performance of “She’s The One” that features Raechelle Banno as Robbie’s girlfriend Nicole Appleton. This sequence brushes over most of the major moments in their relationship in about three minutes, including a devastating decision for Nicole to make between starting a family and continuing on with her band, All Saints.

Still, director Michael Gracey is doing everything he can to make Better Man a memorable and innovative experience, and there are moments that really shine. The complex relationship between Robbie and his father Peter (Steve Pemberton, The Highhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) is tragic and interesting. There’s a musical number where Robbie’s band is performing “Rock DJ” on a public street that is incredibly well executed. I was also really intrigued by the use of Robbie’s inner anxiety personified in the various chimpanzee avatars of his past. I wish that that part of his character came to a better closure by film’s end, but what is there kind of works better than I’d have guessed. I believe whole-heartedly that if anyone was able to make this film work, it would be Gracey, who I’m very excited to continue following in his career.

Better Man is a bold film that starts out really strong before its gimmick starts to get in the way of its traditional biopic stylings. I really wanted to like it, and I want to see more movies make a bold risk like this, but it creates a very mixed-bag and I just don’t feel like the CG chimpanzee approach elevates this material more than just getting a capable actor to just play the role. This one will probably work for fans of Williams as an artist, but I just had the feeling I was watching a self-indulgent ego trip. For general audiences, I can’t recommend Better Man, though I admire it for the attempt. There are simply better movies to see.

2.5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

For my review of Michael Gracey’s The Greatest Showman, click here.