Better Man (15)

Robbie Williams narrates a semi-autobiographical musical drama about his turbulent life. Beginning with his childhood with parents Peter and Janet and supportive grandmother Betty, the film traces his rise to fame as part of Take That managed by Nigel Martin Smith, his decision to go solo and write songs with Guy Chambers, and the addictions which threatened to consume him.

LondonNet Film Review

Better Man (15) Film Review from LondonNet

Seven years ago, Australian visual effects artist Michael Gracey razzle-dazzled with his barnstorming directorial debut The Greatest Showman, starring Hugh Jackman as circus ringmaster PT Barnum. Breathlessly staged song and dance numbers distinguished Gracey as a filmmaker with an innate understanding of how to translate the thrilling kinetic energy of a stage musical to the widescreen format. He performs more eye-popping miracles behind the camera of this deliriously unconventional Robbie Williams biopic, co-written with Simon Gleeson and Oliver Cole…

Narrated with unflinching candour by the Brit Award-winning singer-songwriter, Better Man charts Williams’ meteoric rise and subsequent drug-fuelled self-destruction through the digitally rendered eyes of a chimpanzee – a performing monkey with the speaking voice of actor Jonno Davies and the singing timbre of the star. New Zealand-based special effects house Weta, who conjured the realistic primates of the recent Planet Of The Apes reboot, meld motion capture performance and computer trickery to milk every droplet of emotion from a stardom-seeking protagonist’s troubled childhood (played by Carter J Murphy) to his three sold-out shows in 2003 at Knebworth.

A fractious relationship between Robbie and his entertainer father, Peter Conway (Steve Pemberton), convinces the gregarious youngster to audition for a new boy band managed by Nigel Martin Smith (Damon Herriman). Robbie is cast alongside Gary Barlow (Jake Simmance), Howard Donald (Liam Head), Jason Orange (Chase Vollenweider) and Mark Owen (Jesse Hyde) in Take That – but clashing egos and a doomed romance with All Saints singer Nicole Appleton (Raechelle Banno) untether him from the unstinting support of grandmother Betty (Alison Steadman). When he eventually severs ties with Take That in July 1995 to pursue a solo career, Robbie angrily sticks up two fingers to his doubters and collaborates with songwriter Guy Chambers (Tom Budge) on an album to bare his troubled soul.

Better Man is an unapologetically flashy and surprisingly affecting meditation on the corrosive power of celebrity, which refuses to project Williams’ struggles through a rose-tinted lens. The ape protagonist repeatedly neglects those closest to him then self-abuses to the brink of annihilation. Amidst the rage, there are moments of heartbreak (a pregnancy termination soundtracked to She’s The One, the funereal lament of Angels) as well as the best musical sequence committed to film this year.

Shot at 3am on location with 500 dancers, Gracey stages Rock DJ as a tub-thumping syncopated stomp down Regent Street in London, that skids and tumbles through shops, over a black cab and along the top deck of a tour bus. The centrepiece anthem is a pure jolt of adrenaline. The costly decision to depict Williams as a chimpanzee works surprisingly well and immediately isolates him. In stark contrast, the script’s chosen ending is conventionally sweet and mawkish, and something of a disappointment compared to the whirling invention on display for the previous two hours.

– Sarah Lee