Review: ‘Better Man’ (2024), starring Robbie Williams, Jonno Davies, Steve Pemberton, Damon Herriman, Raechelle Banno, Alison Steadman and Kate Mulvaney

December 23, 2024

by Carla Hay

“Better Man” (2024)

Directed by Michael Gracey

Culture Representation: Taking place from 1982 to 2019, in the United Kingdom, the United States, and other parts of the world, the musical film “Better Man” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: British pop singer Robbie Williams (portrayed as a chimpanzee in “Better Man”) finds fame as a member of Take That and even greater success as a solo artist, but he falls into traps of celebrity status, such as ego problems and addictions to alcohol and drugs.

Culture Audience: “Better Man” will appeal primarily to fans of Robbie Williams and musical movies that are unconventional.

Some viewers might never get accustomed to seeing singer Robbie Williams as a chimpanzee in the musical biopic “Better Man.” It’s a unique choice in an otherwise conventional but entertaining film with uneven pacing. The musical numbers are elaborate highlights of the film, while the dramatic parts—although competently acted—are hit-and-miss scenes that sometimes drag in this 134-minute movie.

Directed by Michael Gracey, “Better Man” was written by Gracey, Simon Gleeson and Oliver Cole. “Better Man” had its world premiere at the 2024 Telluride Film Festival and its Canadian premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. Why is Williams (who was born in 1974) depicted as a monkey in this movie? Gracey has said in interviews that he got the idea from several interviews he did where Williams compared himself to a monkey who was trained to perform.

The real Williams provides voiceover narration, while actors Jonno Davies (as the teenage and adult Robbie) and Asmara Feik (as the child Robbie) do the physical body acting as the chimpanzee, thanks to computer-generated imagery. The other characters in “Better Man” are humans who treat the Robbie Williams character as human and don’t comment that he looks like a monkey. It’s the movie’s way of showing that looking like a monkey is how the Robbie character perceives himself, not how other people see him.

“Better Man” is the second authorized biographical project about Williams in two years. Williams was the subject of the 2023 Netflix limited documentary series “Robbie Williams,” where he looked back on video footage of his life as a celebrity and added his personal comments. Even though “Better Man” is a scripted movie with fantasy elements, “Better Man” actually provides more insight into who Williams is than his “Robbie Williams” documentary. For the purposes of this review, the real people will be referred to by their last names, while the movie characters will be referred to by their first names.

“Better Man,” which is told in chronological order from 1982 to 2019, begins by depicting Robbie as an 8-year-old child in his hometown of Stoke-on-Trent, England. Back then, he was known as Rob or Robert. As he says in hindsight narration, from an early age, he had a burning desire to be an entertainer. He says he has an unabashed love of musicals. And he spends a lot of time at home practicing his singing and showman moves.

As an example of Robbie’s sarcastic humor, he says in a voiceover: “I didn’t have much, but at least I had the respect and admiration of my peers. They just didn’t know it yet.” And then the movie shows a scene of young Robbie being bullied by fellow students in a schoolyard.

Robbie’s father Peter (played by Steve Pemberton) is also a wannabe entertainer, but he doesn’t have the talent that Robbie has. Peter is mostly a low-level emcee at a small pub that he owns called the Red Lion, which has talent contests on a regular basis. Peter passed on to Robbie his admiration of Rat Pack entertainers Frank Sinatra (Peter’s favorite), Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.

Peter is also very self-absorbed. When he wins £5 in a talent contest, the victory goes to his head. He decides to go on the road to try his luck as an entertainer in other citiies. Peter doesn’t come back and abandons his family.

This abandonment causes lifelong “daddy issues” for Robbie. He hides a lot of his emotional pain with a cocky bravado and cheeky jokes. Throughout the movie, there are scenes of Robbie seeing menacing versions of himself (especially while he’s performing), where these versions of himself taunt him and cruelly insult him. It’s an obvious manifestation of his self-loathing.

Robbie’s mother Janet (played by Kate Mulvany) and Robbie’s grandmother Betty (played by Alison Steadman) do the best they can to raise rebellious Robbie. Betty is more supportive than Janet when it comes to Robbie’s showbiz dreams. Janet wants Robbie to graduate from high school and get a regular job, like most of his peers.

Robbie explains in a voiceover: “Where I grew up, you were meant to act small. But the thing is, I’m cabaret. I came out of the womb with jazz hands.” At 9 years old, he got his first taste of performing in front of audiences by being in school plays.

When Robbie is in high school, a school counseler discourages Robbie’s goal to be a famous entertainer, by telling Robbie that Robbie should “keep your feet on the ground” and “this is not for you.” It’s around this time in 1990, when 16-year-old Robbie hears on the radio that there are auditions for a new boy band that eventually will be known as Take That.

Robbie shows up to the audition with a lot of confidence. But that confidence is soon deflated when he sings an old-fashioned show tune and doesn’t get the positive reaction that he expected. Take That’s manager Nigel Martin Smith (played by Damon Herriman), the only “judge” in this audition, tells Robbie it’s the wrong song choice because Take That is a pop group. Robbie feels he’s bombed in this audition, but his saucy spirit comes through when he winks at Nigel before leaving the audition room because he thinks at least this flirtatious gesture will make Nigel remember him.

And just like something in a movie, Robbie gets a call that he’s been chosen for the group. It’s just in time, because Robbie had dropped out of high school, and he hadn’t told his mother yet. Robbie joins Take That, with Nigel as their control-freak manager. (The movie shows it was Nigel’s idea to have Robbie start calling himself Robbie.)

The other members of Take That are Gary Barlow (played by Jake Simmance), Howard Donald (played by Liam Head), Jason Orange (played by Chase Vollenweider) and Mark Owen (played by Jesse Hyde), who look nothing like the real people they’re portraying in this movie. (But then again, the Robbie as a chimpanzee doesn’t look like the real person either.) Gary and Robbie are the only Take That members in “Better Man” who are given distinct personalities.

The movie depicts the real-life jealousy/rivalry that Williams had with Barlow, who was Take That’s main songwriter and therefore made more money than the other members of Take That. A scene later in the movie shows at the height of Take That’s fame in the mid-1990s, Robbie was resentful that Gary could afford to buy a mansion, while Robbie couldn’t afford his own place and was still living his mother and grandmother. As Robbie explains in the movie, Robbie felt that his own songwriting talent was unfairly stifled or dismissed in Take That because Nigel had decided that Gary would be the group’s chief songwriter and wouldn’t budge on this decision. As the youngest member of Take That, Robbie had the image of being the group’s “rebellious bad boy.”

Take That was initially marketed to gay men. But when Nigel saw that the group would be more commercially successful as teen idols marketed mostly to females, he switched to that marketing tactic, and Take That became a mainstream success. Williams has had high-profile romances with women, but he’s always been coy abut his sexuality and doesn’t confirm or deny stories that he’s had male sex partners. In “Better Man,” Robbie says he feels completely comfortable in gay nightclubs because he can be himself without judgment. He also says in the movie that the only thing that bothers him about stories that he had gay sex is if the stories say he was had bad sexual skills.

Take That and Williams didn’t have the success in the United States that they did in Europe, so American audiences might be underwhelmed or disinterested in the story told in “Better Man.” (“Back for Good” was the only Take That song that was a hit in the U.S.) If you’ve ever seen any episode of “Behind the Music,” then you know what to expect for the rest of “Better Man”: Robbie achieves international fame and fortune but also experiences low points in his personal life, such as troubled romances and his various addictions.

When Robbie was asked to leave Take That in 1995 because his addictions made him unreliable, he faced an uncertain future. But he went on to have a solo career that was even more successful than what he achieved with Take That. His first solo album—1997’s “Life Thru a Lens”—had lackluster sales until the release of the album’s ballad single “Angels,” which remains the biggest hit song of Williams’ career. His other solo hits include “Let Me Entertain You,” “Millennium,” “Rock DJ” and “She’s the One.”

“Better Man” is told in chronological order, but the movie isn’t as precious with the timeline for the musical numbers. One of the standout musical sequences—involving acrobatic stunts and superb choreography—shows Take That celebrating the group’s success, but the song playing during this sequence is Williams’ solo song “Rock DJ.” “Better Man” effectively shows a poignant musical moment when “Angels” is performed in the movie. And the recreation of his first 2003 Knebworth concert (where he was made his entrance by hanging upside down on stage) is absolutely stellar.

“Better Man” depicts how Robbie’s solo career allowed him to showcase his talent as a songwriter whose specialty is writing lyrics and melodies. His partnership with musician/producer Guy Chambers (played by Tom Budge), who co-wrote and produced Robbie’s biggest solo hits in the 1990s and early 2000s, is depicted as a “bromance.” However, “Better Man” (which ends in 2019) doesn’t mention that in real life, Chambers and Williams ended their musical partnership in 2002.

Robbie’s love life is also given selective treatment in “Better Man.” Williams’ real-life relationship with American actress/TV host Ayda Field (whom he married in 2010) is noticeably absent from the movie. Robbie’s main romance depicted in “Better Man” is his volatile 1997 to 1999 relationship with his former fiancée Nicole Appleton (played by Raechelle Banno) from the British female singing group All Saints. Robbie and Nicole’s romance is depicted as a match made in pop music heaven, until the relationship was derailed by Robbie’s infidelities and the couple’s busy work schedules.

“Better Man” also shows that Robbie was competitive with Nicole when it came to having hits on the charts. At a time when Robbie’s solo career was stagnant, All Saints had their first No. 1 song (1997’s “Never Ever”) in the United Kingdom. And this type of success bothered Robbie. The movie implies that Nicole had an abortion due to pressure from All Saints’ management. Nicole’s abortion and Robbie’s despair over this terminated pregnancy are candidly shown as the final blow to their relationship. This abortion is never mentioned in the “Robbie Williams” documentary.

Liam Gallagher (played by Leo Harvey-Elledge) and Noel Gallagher (played by Chris Gun)— the feuding brothers of British rock band Oasis—are depicted in “Better Man” as people whom Robbie both admired and envied at a time when Oasis was riding high on the charts in the mid-to-late 1990s. Robbie and Liam became party buddies after Robbie left Take That. In real life (and not depicted in “Better Man”), Liam Gallagher and Appleton began dating in 2000, had a son together in 2001, and were married from 2008 to 2014. Maybe that’s why Robbie says of Nicole in a voiceover: “She has terrible taste in men.”

The “Robbie Williams” documentary doesn’t delve into the complicated feelings that Robbie has for his father Peter. By contrast, “Better Man” puts Robbie’s love/hate relationship with his father at the forefront and as one of the reasons why Robbie has longtime self-esteem problems. Robbie’s battles with depression are also depicted in the movie. It gives “Better Man” a deeper resonance than the usual “sex, drugs and rock’n’roll” storytelling which is expected in a movie about Williams’ life. However, “Better Man” breezes through Robbie’s recovery from addiction in a way that’s a little too superficial.

“Better Man” is solidly enjoyable as a musical. And director Gracey has made a career out of doing musical biopics: His previous feature film as a director is 2017’s “The Greatest Showman” (about circus mogul P.T. Barnum), and he was an executive producer of 2019’s “Rocketman” (about singer/songwriter Elton John), which were both hits. “Better Man” should be commended for doing something never seen before in a musical biopic (depicting the human star of the story as a chimpanzee), but the movie still can’t shake the reality that this monkey persona is a gimmick. “Better Man” is able to transcend this gimmick by offering a story with heart underneath the flashy musical numbers and proficient visual effects.

Paramount Pictures will release “Better Man” in select U.S. cinemas on December 25, 2024, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on January 10, 2025.