Better Man Review: Robbie Williams Is Played By A CGI Ape In The Strangest Biopic Ever Made [Fantastic Fest]

Not since the Wachowskis swung for the fences with "Cloud Atlas" has so much money been spent on a motion picture with such a strong flavor of potential fiasco. To describe "Better Man" to someone who has not seen it is to watch their face scrunch into disbelief, because surely you're pulling their leg.

It's wholly believable that the director of "The Greatest Showman" would make a biopic following the life of English pop star Robbie Williams. And it's a full-blown musical too, with characters breaking into songs outside of the concert sequences. It's also believable, albeit eyebrow-raising, to learn that the film is stylized to the point of pure absurdity, with its musical sequences defying all laws of cinema and reality, frequently tearing the film into the realm of pure, literal fantasy. And while it hits every expected musician biopic trope, it may surprise some to learn that it doesn't sand off the harsh edges, fully embracing an R-rating with its depiction of sex, drugs, and (somehow) extreme violence.

But then you get to the animal in the room: Robbie Williams is played by a CGI chimpanzee in the film. Yes, really. Brought to life via motion capture, Williams is the only non-human in the film, wearing clothes and driving cars and performing on stage and snorting cocaine and enduring a difficult rehab and doing everything else you'd expect someone to do in a musical biopic. He just looks like Caesar from "Planet of the Apes," and no one in the movie acknowledges it. Even the most standard, kitchen sink drama scenes are complicated visual effects shots. You will believe a mo-cap ape can shoot up heroin, and that the movie will treat it with a purely straight face.

Some people will despise "Better Man" on principle, and I wouldn't call them wrong. But while many viewers may recoil in disgust, director Michael Gracey has made my kind of fiasco. Swings this insane deserve some kind of respect, and frankly, this is the kind of swing that earns my instant and undivided attention. And potential obsession.

This is the point in the review where I tell you that, as a filthy American, I have zero knowledge about the life and career of Robbie Williams, who is a big deal in the U.K. but barely registers in the United States beyond his tracks being popular in gay clubs. But after "Better Man" played to a bewildered audience as a secret screening at the 2024 edition of Fantastic Fest, I called a colleague with more musical knowledge than me, described the more extreme imagery and choices the movie makes, and was told, without hesitation "Yep, that sounds like Robbie Williams." So I'll leave it to the expert on that front: this movie's big choices make a certain kind of sense, to the people who know what's up.

So, what can I say as a non-fan dumped into this ambitious, formally deranged experience? I can say that Williams, who voices his own ape-self (Jonno Davis provides the motion capture performance itself) is quite good, capturing Williams' confrontational sense of humor and deep despair well. I can also say that the movie doesn't treat its main character, despite (once again) being a CGI ape, as a joke or a gag. This is not a parody. In fact, the choice is inspired by Williams himself, who has described himself as feeling like a dancing monkey throughout his career. Gracey just takes that image and runs with it.

The film's style may be extreme, but the basic building blocks and plot beats on display are as straightforward as something like "Walk the Line" or "Ray." If there is a joke present, the joke is that there isn't a joke. It certainly helps that the visual effects that bring chimp Williams to life are quite good, and wholly convincing. This isn't a "Cats" situation, where the effects look rushed or sloppy. After a half hour, you've just fully accepted that this musical biopic stars a CGI ape. Once again: if that's the joke, that we just eventually treat one of the most absurd choices in cinematic history as something normal after a few minutes, I offer full and un-ironic congratulations to Gracey and his VFX artists.

It's disarming how sincere "Better Man" is, and how it wears its heart on its sleeve at all times. Sure, this is the most genre-defying biopic since Todd Haynes' "I'm Not There," but it's still an earnest, by-the-book tale of a musician's rise and fall and rise again. The revolution is entirely visual, an ambitious aesthetic layered over a well-trod series of tropes. It's a sincere movie, perhaps painfully so. Despite the technology involved, this is an old-fashioned movie that hits familiar, comforting biopic beats. Once again ... maybe that's the joke?

But I'm not so sure about anything in this movie being a joke, really. After all, once you get used to the fact that the lead character in this Robbie Williams biopic is (say it with me) played by a motion-capture CGI ape, it starts to become the most normal part of the film. He never acts like an ape, and there's never a gag about him doing anything remotely inhuman. He emotes and lives and betrays and breaks down like a human character. You just accept it after a little while. It becomes normal.

What's not normal is the visual style Gracey employs, which feels like he rewatched the bombastic musical sequences he crafted for "The Greatest Showman" and decided "Nah, too small, too low-key." Every song in "Better Man" propels the story forward, shattering the rules of time, space, and cinema. If you're feeling comfortable, don't worry, the next musical sequence will do something to break your brain. By the time the musical sequences have taken on the tone of epic fantasy and even more epic horror, either the film has won you over or lost you entirely. This is vision so big, so pure, so singularly strange that it defies convention even as the script simultaneously clings to convention to make sure the wilder choices don't lose you entirely. Wait. Maybe that's the joke?

It truly says something that the CGI lead character here is far from the weirdest, strangest choice the movie makes. Just wait for the Knebworth concert sequence. Heck, just wait for any of the musical numbers, really.

I saw a steady stream of people walk out of "Better Man" during its surprise screening. There's a chance this was just the wrong crowd for this movie, or maybe this is the kind of film that plays better when the audience is a bit more prepared for what's going to happen on that screen. My colleague sitting next to squirmed throughout the entire movie, finding it uniquely unpleasant.

And I don't blame anyone for having that reaction. "Better Man" is an unclassifiable swing, and one that I can't help but admire it even as I acknowledge that its choices are frequently unusual and even more frequently deranged. This is a biopic made by a mad man, filmed in a visual language that defies categorization, with musical numbers that would make Baz Luhrmann dizzy. And it stars that CGI ape. And I'm pretty sure it's good. I maybe even loved it. I'm not sure. I just know I'm never, ever going to forget it.

/Film Rating: 7.5 out of 10

"Better Man" opens in theaters on December 25, 2024.