‘Better Man’ Review: Robbie Williams Biopic Would Be a Snooze, but for the Wild Choice to Depict Him as a Chimp
variety.comPeter Debruge Chief Film Critic When Robbie Williams told an interviewer that he felt like a performing monkey, he didn’t mean it literally.
But that’s exactly how “The Greatest Showman” director Michael Gracey interprets the remark in “Better Man,” an off-the-wall musical biopic that surely would have seemed banal — as opposed to downright bananas — had it featured a flesh-and-blood actor in the Robbie Williams role.
Gracey takes audiences through all the expected beats of Williams’ career, from his breakthrough as a member of Take That to his record-breaking solo concert at Knebworth, but does so with a CG chimpanzee standing in for the Britpop bad boy.
Against all odds, that gimmick works, distinguishing the project from so many other cookie-cutter pop-star hagiographies. If you want to fawn over this boy-band backup singer-turned-solo superstar for four hours, check out the “Robbie Williams” doc series on Netflix.
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