Better Man review: Big-hearted Robbie Williams biopic is no monkey business

The rumours are true. In the biopic of his life, Robbie Williams is being played by a monkey.

To be more accurate, British actor Jonno Davies provides the voice and motion-capture performance of a CGI chimpanzee that is supposed to be Williams.

The reasoning is easy enough to connect – Williams has said he felt about as evolved as a simian and that he was a performing monkey.

It might sound like a completely ludicrous conceit, but the gimmick works rather well. In fact, it’s the most successful aspect of Better Man, named after one of Williams’ hit tracks and his personal journey to become, well, a better man.

When you meet the onscreen Robbie, he’s a very cute baby chimp, which immediately endears you to spending the next two hours and 15 minutes buying into the idea that while everyone else is in human form, the best-selling artist of absolute pop bangers will be covered in fur.

As far as the story goes, Better Man is a straightforward biopic, hitting many of the expected beats of Williams’ life. There’s his worship of his entertainer dad (Steve Pemberton), his abandonment by that pater familias, his close bond with his mum (Kate Mulvany) and his gran (Alison Steadman).

Robbie is an outsider, not great at school, but when he sees an open call to audition for a boy band, which eventually becomes Take That. Those early heady days of fame comes with feuds, drugs and addiction, and his eventual split with the group.

The addiction persists, through his attempt to make it as a solo artist, meeting All Saints’ Nicole Appleton (Raechelle Banno), reunions and estrangements with his dad, and the general struggle with fame, notoriety and the expectations heaped upon by himself and everyone else.

The thread that runs through Robbie’s life is almost-crippling depression and anxiety, manifested in the film as other versions of himself, starring menacingly at him while he’s performing, his own mind locked in battle against itself.

Better Man, like the man whose story it tells, is an entertaining spectacle that earnestly aims for the dazzle.

Williams’ songs are really incorporated and most of the musical numbers, including an emotional baby Robbie singing “Feel” but especially the extravaganza of “Rock DJ”, sung by the onscreen version of Take That on London’s Regent Street (filmed on location while most of Better Man was shot in Melbourne), with all the bells and whistles thrown in.

That sequence and its choreography pumps with energy and high-flying joy, and that is director Michael Gracey’s specialty.

The Australian filmmaker’s debut feature was the popular The Greatest Showman, which absolutely slaps during its musical numbers but is frustratingly disjointed and disappointing elsewhere. While Better Man coheres better, it suffers from similar structure issues, including an inert script.

Even if you knew little about Williams’ biography and had not seen his underwhelming four-part Netflix docuseries, you’ll see every emotional beat of Better Man coming. Everything is telegraphed and nothing is nuanced.

The most glaring issue of all is that nearly every scene is too long.

Gracey and the film’s five credited editors allow each sequence to run at least 15 per cent past when it should’ve ended. The movie feels dragged out overall, but it also provokes impatience throughout.

A dance number between Robbie and Nicole, set to “She’s the One” is prosaically staged and should’ve been half the length.

Having said all that, Williams fans will love Better Man. It’s not trying to be coy or clever, it is exactly what it says on the tin, and no one will feel dudded with by its toe-tapping, lively spirit and the big heart it wears on its sleeve.

For many audiences, that is all they want.

Rating: 3/5

Better Man is in cinemas on Boxing Day