Better Man Review: Pop Star Of The Planet Of The Apes

The musical biopic has become something of a genre unto itself. As Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story so hilariously pointed out, nearly every biographical film about a music star follows essentially the same story. Despite this fact, many of the recent biopics of this type have continued to follow the formula. Better Man, the biographical film about pop star Robbie Williams, it must be said, ultimately is that same story. However, it must also be said that no biopic has ever been told quite like this.

Cut down to a basic summary of the plot, Better Man is the same as almost every biopic you've ever seen about a famous musician. They become famous, they sit at the top of the world, they indulge in drugs and/or alcohol and/or sex significantly more than they should, they crash back down to earth, and then they find their redemption. However, only describing the plot of Better Man does not properly prepare one for the level of insanity that this movie reaches.

Better Man separates itself from your average musical biopic in a couple of different ways. The first is that the subject of the film was directly involved in the movie's production. Williams sings newly recorded versions of some of his songs, as well as a completely original composition. The other major difference is that the role of Robbie Williams isn't played by an actor who simply resembles the star, at least not technically, as the main character of this movie is a CGI chimpanzee.

Better Man’s CGI chimp detracts from the story until it doesn't.

Michael Gracey previously directed The Greatest Showman with Hugh Jackman, a biopic about P.T. Barnum that never let the truth about P.T. Barnum stand in the way of telling a good story, and thus was perhaps the most realistic biopic of P.T. Barnum one could possibly create. With Better Man, Gracey takes things a step further by removing the reality of the subject of the film entirely.

In an utterly remarkable, completely bizarre, and mildly confusing, decision, while every other actor in Better Man is a human being, Robbie Williams is portrayed as an anthropomorphic chimpanzee. At no point does the movie remark on this, and an oblique explanation only comes near the end of the story. It simply happens. Your main character is a chimp, now let's get started.

To be sure, the decision to have your main character have the face of a chimp and have nobody remark on this fact is a little bit strange, at least at the outset. Eventually, however, as you do with any CGI character in a movie, your brain settles in, suspends disbelief, and lets the story move forward. Once that happens, Better Man does truly begin to separate itself from your average biopic.

Better Man’s blends reality and the surreal in a compelling way.

The movie has been called a musical, and while there are fully choreographed song and dance numbers in the film, there are only a few – not nearly as many as one would expect from your average musical. These sequences are a highlight, where director Michael Gracey is able to show the most creativity.

The numbers are largely CGI-driven affairs, but considering your main character, this is actually a benefit. The CGI chimp allows for some incredibly wild sequences, not simply in the songs but also in other parts of the movie things get downright surreal. At one point Williams is literally battling with himself and his own self-doubt. Moments like this likely would not have worked as well if we were dealing with a fully human protagonist. While Williams may be the only CGI character in the film, the unreality that comes with that permeates the entire movie.

While Better Man is the Robbie Williams show, and thus is primarily a showcase for Williams himself, as well as Jonno Davies, who is the man behind the monkey on screen, there are also a few human characters worth taking note of. The most significant of them is Steve Pemberton, who plays Robbie’s father Peter. Here, as with so much of Better Man, the movie is both a trope and a subversion of it. Peter is a neglectful father who withholds the love his son so desperately needs. But he’s not only that. There is more to the characterization, which makes the performance more complex than it at first appears.

Robbie Williams’ story doesn’t hold back on the star’s darker moments.

If there's a potential pitfall in having your subject directly involved in your biopic, it's the potential to downplay the more negative elements of one's life. As one who is not directly familiar with the details of Robbie Williams' personal history to any great degree, I can't speak to whether or not Better Man does this. However, considering how dark the movie can get, and how it's willing to paint Williams as the "bad guy" on more than one occasion, it's difficult to imagine that the story is downplaying much of anything.

And in the darker moments of the story, the performance of the lead character truly becomes impressive. Watching a CGI chimp doing hard drugs and going through the rehab that follows it runs a significant risk of looking so ridiculous that it loses its emotional weight. But Better Man is committed, and by the time you get to the darker moments, you are as invested in the story Robbie Williams – however he may look

Better Man's wild premise likely won't work for everybody, and if you take it away, all you have is the same biopic format we've all seen 100 times. I didn't think it would work for me and yet I found myself completely enthralled throughout. It balances the true story and complex emotional issues of real people with a visual style that we've certainly never seen in this sort of movie before.