
A young Robbie Williams sits by his family’s television set, singing along to Frank Sinatra’s performance of “My Way.” His father joins in, using a beer bottle as a microphone.
As they sit closer to the screen, Williams’ father points to Sinatra and says, “You can’t learn it. You’re either born with it, or you’re a nobody.” Robbie’s face drops. The father and son chorus resumes but is cut short when Williams accidentally knocks the TV antenna. As his father rushes to fix it, a disappointed Williams is called away by his grandmother.
‘Better Man’ centers on the life and career of British popstar Robbie Williams. The musical biopic debuted in the U.S. earlier this month. Despite receiving an 88 percent critic score and a 90 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, the film has floundered at the box office and is struggling to recover its $110 million budget.
When I watched the film, just a few days after its release, there were fewer than a dozen people in the theater. One person left during the second act. Though many Americans are not familiar with Williams (I was not either before watching the film), there had to be other factors contributing to lackluster ticket sales.
Notably, there’s the bizarre decision to depict Williams as a CGI chimpanzee throughout the film. This likely alienated many viewers and added another layer of strangeness to a story that was already unfamiliar to most American audiences. If you were not interested in watching a film about a musician you had little knowledge of, seeing him portrayed as a chimpanzee was probably not going to change your mind.
Williams’s appearance as an ape reflects the way he views himself and his role as a performer. This works well within the film, as Williams is always distinct from every other character. Still, the merging of a musical biopic with animation resembling “Planet of the Apes” seems to have resulted in a product that was too absurd to capture the interest of the average moviegoer.
Those of us who did watch “Better Man” were treated to an intense, emotional spectacle that provides a deep dive into the consequences of pursuing fame. Aside from its lack of commercial success, the film succeeds in pushing the boundaries of what a musical biopic can be.
Williams voices himself, recreating vulnerable moments from his life, including his first audition, break-up with pop group Take That, battle with substance abuse, and strained relationship with singer Nicole Appleton. During concerts, he struggles to overcome voices of self-doubt that have haunted him throughout his career.
Biopics are often criticized for oversimplifying their subjects or for giving an inaccurate depiction of real-world events. “Better Man” avoids this by fully embracing the artist’s perspective, prioritizing Williams’s emotional state throughout the film over a purely realistic, “documentary-like” approach.
Though “Better Man” is not everyone’s cup of tea, it’s refreshing to see a musical biopic that takes risks, throws audiences into the artist’s inner world, and broadens the scope of the genre.
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