Robbie Williams' “Take That” in biopic

Michael Graceys Better man was sparked by a conversation with Robbie Williams in which the singer reportedly shared Greatest showman Filmmaker that he often sees himself as a dancing monkey. The film presents the British pop villain as an anthropomorphized CG primate who looks like he emerged from one of the new worlds Planet of the Apes Films. This exuberant, almost unique biopic walks a dizzying line between stupidity and profoundness and is as difficult to resist as it is to believe that it was made in the first place.

Starting with his youth in Staffordshire in central England, Better man traces Williams' career from his beginnings in youth theater through his time as one fifth of the boy band Take That to his later rise as a solo artist. Along the way, he struggles with the burden of fame, music mogul Nigel Martin-Smith (Damon Herriman), a romance with fellow recording artist Nicole Appleton (Raechelle Banno), his relationship with his long-absent father (Steve Pemberton), and his use of drugs and alcohol . He is also a monkey.

Robbie is played via mo-cap and voiced by Jonno Davies (except for the early childhood scenes), while Williams himself does all of the singing. Gracey's film is so in tune with the artist's incorrigibly cheeky personality that it feels like something radiating directly from its subject's identity, remaining insightful even when the central conceit doesn't quite work.

Throughout, Robbie's apelikeness is portrayed as straight as an arrow; It's not noticed or commented on by himself or the characters around him, but it visually highlights him in a way that resonates thematically. He may be a monkey, but he also has one on his back – a desperate, toxic need to be seen by others as something greater than human, triggered by his father's disinterest.

There are moments when it's easy to wonder whether Gracey and co-screenwriters Oliver Cole and Simon Gleeson should have paid even a little attention to Robbie's simian nature, although the conceit forces us to see the age-old tropes upon which the biopic builds fresh eyes. The material may be the usual rise-fall-rise business, but by evoking the emotions it evokes towards a very sexy but still ape-like monkey, it forces the viewer to come to terms with the fact that we are celebrities so often seen being stared at as zoo animals instead of being the flesh and blood people that they are. Whether this was intentional or a happy coincidence is up to the viewer.

But entertainment is the name of the game, and there's something deliciously ridiculous about watching an ape-like version of William blowing the rails and bed models while the inventive musical passages break the film out of its foam, rinse, repeat biopic mode. Favoring the free-flowing, reality-twisting style of storytelling more common in Hollywood musicals, Gracey creates a tactile, melodic world where working-class neighborhoods glow with the glow of invisible mirrorballs and Picadilly Circus shoppers engage in tirelessly choreographed dances.

As prototypical as the plot and dramatic beats can often seem, each of these stirring musical interludes offers something wild and unexpected – from Robbie facing off against his former self on the battlefield (sword in paw) to his encounter and… his first dance with All Saints member and future fiancée Nicole Appleton, in which her painful future decision to have an abortion plays out between gossamer twists and dips. There is great dissonance in seeing these emotional highs and crushing lows enacted through an expressive, fleeting simulacrum of one of our closest genetic cousins, but like everything else Better manThese passages are as wildly entertaining and emotionally direct as the messy celebrity whose life they draw from.

After all the ups, downs and insanely surreal musical vignettes, Better man There is still a final grace note missing that could send the visual metaphor for deficient personality flying through the roof. The film's schmaltzy, slimy conclusion practically screams for a moment (half a beat, even) where Ape-Robbie becomes Robbie-Robbie and his journey from an ego-driven dancing ape desperate to be seen and loved to the “better” marks man” of the title as complete. But then again, maybe he's just not quite there yet.