Robbie Williams is both the hero and the villain in bizarre and bananas biopic Better Man
Well, here's a pleasant surprise to close out the year - a strikingly original take on the jaded music biopic from Greatest Showman director Michael Gracey and pop princeling turned Great Entertainer turned great survivor Robbie Williams.
Unlike recent entries to the rock flick canon such as the overly squeamish Freddie Mercury film Bohemian Rhapsody and the timorous Amy Winehouse effort Back to Black, Better Man is willing to take risks and is more than ready to paint an unflinching portrait of Williams’ rise and fall and rise again as the knowingly obnoxious and likeable king of naff pop.
It’s full of drug taking, excessive boozing and his other main addiction - fame, fickle fame. The best thing about is that the Robster is played by a CGI, motion capture monkey. Yes, Robbie, a man who always had a talent for simian-like merry mayhem and very bad behaviour, is played by a chimp. It’s either a creative coup or a trashy gimmick but it does lend Better Man a surreal lustre that captures the wayward spirit of its subject.
Jonno Davies (who you might know from such movies as Hunters and Kingsman: The Secret Service) portrays Robbie and he plays the role straight. We see baby monkey Robbie, growing up poor in a flat above a pub in Stoke on Trent with his nan (the always great Alison Steadman), his Irish mum and his dad Pete (Steve Pemberton), who looks like a cast-off from On The Buses and is a part-time stand-up comedian and cabaret singer who gets a coach to London one day to watch the FA Cup Final and never really returns.
Take That were of course pretty wonderful but that era is covered in a blur of terrible dance routines and excellent pop songs with Gracey concentrating on Robbie’s chalk and cheesy rivalry with Gary Barlow, a talented songwriter in a crap jumper and the wrong trainers, and his contempt for the band’s manager, the deviously effective Nigel Martin-Smith.
Gracey also produced Elton John biopic Rocket Man and Better Man shares some of that movie’s DNA. There are numerous fantasy-based song and dance scenes, the best of which are an Oliver! Styled performance of Rock DJ on a glittering Regents Street in London and Robbie’s meet cute with future girlfriend Nicole Appleton on a cruise ship turning into a duet of She’s The One.
The self-effacing and self-obliterating Williams provides narration throughout and he has always been the first to admit that once he achieved huge solo fame, he treated almost everybody abysmally. He neglects his doting nan, ends up embarrassed by Take That and ignores Appleton as he shoots up in the bathroom.
It’s certainly a damn sight more entertaining and revealing than last year’s laboured four-hour long Netflix documentary about Robbie the LA-based father of four who has managed to separate his double life as a pop star in recovery and a doting family man.
Despite those awful ads for cat food, Williams remains a very, very good pop star and Better Man is mad, funny and sad. Anyone still wondering if this still cheeky monkey can still pull an audience should remember that he’s playing Croke Park next summer.
Alan Corr @CorrAlan2
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