As a film proposal, Better Man makes perfect sense. Music biopics are big business in the era of Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman, and there aren’t many British music icons bigger than Robbie Williams. All they had to do was find an actor to play Robbie, write a script about his checkered career, and then watch the money pour in when the film hits UK cinemas on Boxing Day.
But this is not Better Man, if early reports are to be believed. Better Man, directed by The Greatest Showman musical specialist Michael Gracey, seems to turn the biopic format completely on its head, starting with the decision to portray Williams as a CGI monkey.
It should be said that we don’t know anything specific about the ape. Deadline reported on this idea back in 2021, but since then it hasn’t always been mentioned in reports about the production. In more recent articles, we’ve heard euphemistic descriptions that the film takes a “fantastic” approach and delivers “a highly original exercise in storytelling.”
They almost certainly mean the ape. Peter Jackson’s company Wētā FX lists Better Man as an upcoming production on their website. Given their experience with apes on Jackson’s King Kong and the recent Planet of the Apes films, they would be a first choice for a project like this. Gracey also has experience, having been a VFX artist before moving into directing.
It’s not as if Williams is over such things, either. In his 2002 song “Me and My Monkey,” he used the idea of a monkey to represent his behavior at the height of his drug addiction.
In an interview with Deadline in 2021, Gracey said: “How we portray Robbie in the film is top secret. I want to do it in a really original way. I remember going to the movies as a kid and there were movies that blew me away and made me say as I sat there in the theater, ‘I’ve never seen that before.’ I just want the audience to have that feeling.”
Read more: Robbie Williams has to cut parts of his biopic due to legal threats (HuffPost)
A recent edition of the gossip column Popbitch said American audiences were “utterly confused” when an early cut was shown in LA. They wrote: “It seems as though the cut of the film they were shown contained no explanation as to why Robbie is an ape while the rest of the cast is entirely human.”
Of course, we won’t know all this for sure until the film officially screens for the first time at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. We’ll almost certainly get a trailer for the film then, revealing the bizarre truth about Williams and the monkey before its December 2024 release.
We already know a lot. Williams plays himself – monkey or not – with Jonno Davies as his younger counterpart, while Inside No. 9’s Steve Pemberton will play the star’s father. Kate Mulvany plays Williams’ mother, while Gavin and Stacey star Alison Steadman will play his beloved grandmother Betty.
Read more: Robbie Williams is interviewed by Louis Theroux in BBC boy band documentary (PA Media)
Williams will sing several of his most famous songs in the film, including in concert scenes filmed during some of the star’s 2022 performances at the Royal Albert Hall. But if it’s true that he’ll spend at least part of the film in the guise of a CGI ape, that could be very bizarre indeed.
Robbie Williams’ genius lies in his status as a pure showman. He has admitted in the past that he is neither the best singer nor the best dancer, but he is a truly electrifying performer with enormous charisma on stage, so it’s no surprise that he wants to do something really different with the film version of his story.
Read more: Robbie Williams’ wild past from leaving Take That to partying with Oasis (Yahoo Entertainment)
And let’s face it: Very few of us want to see a straight-up music biopic these days. In fact, the best example of the genre in recent years was 2022’s Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, which starred Daniel Radcliffe as the titular accordion enthusiast as a tough playboy who rescues Madonna from the clutches of drug lord Pablo Escobar.
These musicians have spent their entire lives in the spotlight, so it’s refreshing to see them telling their stories in more creative ways on the big screen. And if that means Robbie Williams is played by a CGI monkey in Better Man, then I’m ordering a ticket for opening day. Merry Christmas to all of us.
Better Man will be in UK cinemas from December 26th.
