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Robbie Williams's Ape Flick is a Bit Unevolved

Why is Robbie Williams an ape? It’s a confounding choice and I will give Better Man, the musical biopic directed by Michael Gracey on Williams’s career, credit for that. But what is the reasoning? In Williams’s own words -he narrates the film himself and is the voice of some of his own dialogue alongside Jonno Davies as his motion-capture stand-in- it’s because he always felt different, “less evolved”. And so the movie proceeds through that self-perception, his Planet of the Apes appearance not tangible to anyone else.
The real reason of course is likely just to differentiate the biopic formula, and between this, Pharrell Williams’s Lego documentary Piece by Piece, and A Complete Unknown -distinct enough in approach, it’s good to see the message that conventional music biographies are stale has on some level broken through to the studios. Yet it does take more than a gimmick to stand out and Better Man -while it does try in some other admirable respects- doesn’t sufficiently do so.
Robbie Williams is a British pop star actually somewhat obscure outside of Europe, so this movie in North America actually serves a purpose of introducing him and his history to audiences, for good or bad. A lot of people would lean towards the latter, and Williams himself cheekily acknowledges and gives credence to this at the start -his public reputation has been quite turbulent over the years, from his joining the boy band Take That as a teenager, falling hard into alcoholism and substance abuse while becoming notorious for controversial and inflammatory theatrics; launching his own highly successful solo career before at last pivoting his image to that of a standard-bearer of classic swing.
As ego-driven as he is, there is self-awareness and reflection in the way that he and Gracey present his story here. Unlike other popular musicians who've had a hand in their own biopics, Better Man cannot be credibly accused of sanitizing his image or story. Although cynically, that is as much because Williams knows his popularity is in part tied to his messier side and has a canniness to exploit it, as much as it may derive from some honest desire to tell his story warts and all. It seems to be a modestly authentic story (though it glosses over the entire 2000s), if taken with the grain of salt that it is unambiguously told from Williams's perspective.
He very much views his story with the framing that his standards era is the culmination of his entire artistic drive, having grown up on the music of the Rat Pack with his complicated relationship with his father Peter (played by, of all people The League of Gentlemen's Steve Pemberton). Everything he made and suffered through was to get him to that point where he is clean, sophisticated, and crooning to a sold-out audience. It makes a triumphant air to his arc -one extremely typical of so many a musician biopic. Certainly, you can feel Gracey pulling from the likes of Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman especially in the style of presentation ("I'm Still Standing" translated here in Williams's Royal Albert Hall rendition of "My Way"). And thus it presents the goal of the movie to be, in spite of Williams’s various self-deprecating airs and owning up to his mistakes, a propaganda piece nonetheless. Williams is saying he knows what we think of his peak career years and the boy band scene he was a part of, and that he shares those sentiments too, but that they don’t apply anymore in his dignified era. In doing so, much as he may be intermittently kind towards his former band-mates, frontman Gary Barlow in particular, he also casts shade on them as well as their rivals (Liam Gallagher though probably deserves it).
Curious illustration of ego though it is, Better Man still feels terribly ordinary -monkey man notwithstanding. Obviously it doesn’t feel that way to him, but Williams’s story is not a very unique one by pop star standards. That doesn’t diminish its significance to him and the people in his life, but it does make for a fairly bland experience if condensed into a formula narrative structure, which this movie for the most part is. It is broken up by several musical sequences, the most blatant and probably smartest touch borrowed from Rocketman, and they are easily the highlights, especially “Rock DJ” (performed by the band to symbolize their rise, though actually a Williams original from after he left) and “Let Me Entertain You”, a surreal number set at his 2003 Knebworth performance. Gracey, who previously directed The Greatest Showman, brings some of that same elaborate choreography to the song sequences here, and though most of them are heavily composed with the aid of CGI (obviously given the monkey), there is still a fair bit of creativity with their structure, flow, pace, and context; ”Let Me Entertain You” for example, features Williams battling a flurry of alter egos from other points in his life in violent surreal Arthurian metaphor -derived from his beloved nan (Alison Steadman), who instilled in him a self-perceived likeness to King Arthur.
But these exciting sequences aside, it’s still a rather dull journey, and Williams -even in monkey form- isn't so compelling a focal point. The drugs and antics and affairs don't have lustre or weight -partly out of the cheekiness of Williams's commentary diluting his more serious feelings. And as to his relationships, few figures in his periphery are allowed to stand out as having any impact on him. His girlfriend, All Saints member Nicole Appleton (Raechelle Banno) is especially hard-done by this, while his father -who abandoned the family and does a lot to exploit Robbie while he's at his lowest point- gets to be hailed the most important figure of his life and is given a redemption beat he thoroughly doesn't earn. Simply because it lends obligatory catharsis to the picture of Williams's life.
I'm surprised the ape never goes away -if it is indeed this self-perception borne out of Williams being a less-evolved outcast, surely by the fulfillment of his life's ambition and image it would fade away? Regardless, while Williams's face or any real imitation of it may not ever appear in this movie, it is still radically infused with his ego. The ape is simply a sharply rendered mask for this, the showy musical sequences a distraction. While there certainly is no clean portrait painted of his life story, and plenty of remorse, it really can't escape that self-serving theme. When the title track comes on in the aftermath of the personal tragedy that is credited with sparking Williams's rehabilitation, and it is illustrated by a montage of contrived amendment imagery, the shallowness of Better Man becomes indisputable. Given the subject, you might argue that is fitting.

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