‘Better Man’: Toronto Review

Dir: Michael Gracey. Australia. 2024. 134mins 

Most music biopics celebrate the genius or groundbreaking artistry of their subject. What’s refreshing about Better Man, a tribute to Robbie Williams, is that it harbours no illusions about what drove the UK pop superstar. As he explains in this very entertaining, surprisingly moving film, all he wanted was to be famous, and that candour creates a fresh way of viewing both Williams and the biopic format, stripping away the genre’s pretensions to focus on the neediness that compels many performers. But the picture’s audacity doesn’t end there, with director Michael Gracey casting Jonno Davies to play Williams — and then rendering him as a monkey through special effects.

Very entertaining, surprisingly moving 

Premiering in Telluride and Toronto, Better Man will be released in the UK and US around Christmas. The British singer, who turned 50 earlier this year, was always more of a sensation in Europe than North America – although Netflix’s four-part 2023 documentary may have helped to raise his profile. But even those unfamiliar with Williams’ hits as a solo artist or, earlier, with the 1990s boy band Take That should still enjoy Better Man’s lively structure and energetic musical numbers courtesy of Gracey, who previously directed The Greatest Showman — a moniker that would be equally appropriate for Williams himself.

Focusing on Williams’ life prior to 2001, the film presents him as a CGI monkey (played by Davies). The idea came to Gracey from conversations he had with Williams, who frequently commented that he has felt like a performing monkey — a bit of hyperbole the director takes literally, visually illustrating how the young man feels ugly and weird in comparison to those around him. But encouraged by his entertainer father Peter (Steve Pemberton), who abandoned the family when Williams was a boy, he pushes himself toward stardom, successfully auditioning for Take That and becoming a pin-up at the age of 15. After a few years, with drugs and alcohol consuming him, Williams is cut loose from the group, forced to reinvent himself as an adult singer.

Early on, someone complains that the young Williams is a “cheeky little bastard”, but Gracey recognises that this is the singer’s great strength. An admirer of Frank Sinatra, who his father also adored, Williams longs to be the centre of attention, both master entertainer and irrepressible scamp. The film spends almost no time digging into Williams’ creative process or artistic ambitions — the impish singer doesn’t think in such lofty terms. Rather, he wants No. 1 records and obscene wealth, and Better Man refuses to judge him for what others might decide are shallow reasons to get into music. If anything, Gracey argues that being true to one’s own self is the most important thing any artist can do.

Davies’ cocky, charismatic performance gets around the problem that many biopics have, which is the temptation to ensure that the actor closely resembles the subject. The impressive CGI work is initially jarring, but soon it becomes a poignant means of experiencing Williams’ rise, fall and redemption. The character’s self-loathing is etched on his digital face — no matter how successful Williams gets, all we (and he) see is this misfit creature.

In other regards, though, Better Man contains plenty of genre cliches. Williams’ descent into drugs is predictably gruelling, and his mundane problems with romantic fidelity are hardly unique. But within a conventional framework, Gracey celebrates his subject’s unique skill at delivering an ineffable wow factor.  Most forcefully, that comes across in the musical set pieces, which turn the singer’s tunes into theatrical extravaganzas. Take That’s career takeoff is scored to ’Rock DJ’ — who cares if that was a Williams solo hit long after he left the band? — as an entire city becomes a backdrop for a show-stopping dance number. As on The Greatest Showman, the director goes for the emotional jugular in these sequences, emphasising what is most joyous or moving about tunes like ‘Angels’ and then finding expressive camera movements to match. 

None of these songs are particularly deep but, Better Man suggests, that doesn’t mean they’re shallow. That generous, open-minded attitude infuses the entire film, which is snarky but also emotional, thoughtful without being ponderous. ’Let Me Entertain You’ goes the title of another Williams classic — Better Man never shortchanges that seductive sentiment, or forgets the insecure artist at its heart.