Better Man (2024)

Yes you finally made a monkey out of me

Of all the 2024 movies, it’s the one that most sounds like a 30 Rock gag. I can hear the exchange in my head…

Tracy: “I’m appearing in a film that tells the life story of British pop star Robbie Williams as if he were a monkey.”

Liz: “Tracy, nobody in America knows who Robbie Williams is.”

Tracy: “That’s why he’s a monkey!”

And yet it exists! Better Man is the second film directed by Michael Gracey, the enigmatic Australian who trained under Baz Luhrmann until his debut of The Greatest Showman in 2017. Gracey has been linked to various projects in the seven years since, but other than a Pink promo doc, nothing has seen the light of day with his name on it until this. I hope we don’t have to wait another seven years.

(Note: Friend-of-the-site and general smart person Gavin McDowell, whose wife I once gave COVID to while she was pregnant, is known for his attention to factual detail and his disdain for anyone getting those details wrong. Thus, he has had a field day reminding people that a chimpanzee — which is what Williams is depicted as in Better Man — is technically not a monkey but a great ape. I have now acknowledged the distinction, and will continue to use the term “monkey” imprecisely and incorrectly for the rest of this review. My apologies, Gavin.)

Yes, it’s true, the movie with a premise that doesn’t make sense about a pop star that nobody cares about… is good. Or, at a minimum, it is fascinating; intermittently glorious and provocative. Strong reviews weren’t enough to get people to show up, though. It stumbled to $20 million at the global box office against an eye-popping budget of $110 million. I guess people really don’t want to watch a movie about Robbie Williams.

But that’s shifted a bit since the film arrived on streaming, at least according to Letterboxd numbers and anecdotal evidence. Whether it’s the Oscar nomination or the good word of mouth, viewers are finally starting to find their way to Better Man after its generational box office floppitude. So here is my plea for you to join us late arrivers.

Better Man has a deeply chaotic soul of different creative ideas struggling for dominance. I’m not entirely convinced it lands the plane, but I appreciate the flight nonetheless. As with Greatest Showman, the film struggles under the weight of documented fact that it can’t completely escape. It’s more than that, though; in both films, Gracey leans into the problems of its material, zagging into the tonal carnage and trying to own it rather than brushing it aside or minimizing it.

The CGI monkey gimmick — and it is a gimmick that never starts feeling even a little natural — is supported by a self-deprecating vocal performance from Williams himself. I’m sure that there have been movies with animated characters surrounded by human supporting casts, and I’m sure there have been movies where actors star as autobiographical versions of themselves, but have both ever happened at the same time? The setup definitely improves the non-musical portions of the film by adding a glint of surreality.

There’s still a hard limit to the appeal of the narrative, though, and it’s a ceiling the film crashes into at full throttle, over and over. Better Man can’t avoid the fact that it’s a musical biopic hitting basically every beat mocked in Walk Hard. Tortured relationship with a father as the catalyst for becoming an artist? Using drugs to drown out the demons, only to realize it makes things worse and entering rehab? An early girlfriend who salves the wounds but the hero cruelly discards in a moment of indulgence? One special concert as the film’s final scene that serves as a reflection of the long path there? (Robbie Williams needs to think about his whole life before he plays.) It’s all here. It doesn’t help that Williams is a dull, unlikable character. Better Man practically lampshades the nothingness of its subject, that Williams is “interesting” basically just because he’s a famous bad boy credited to some chart hits, which at least shows that the filmmakers knew they had a subject matter problem. But pointing at a flaw doesn’t magically make it disappear.

No, it’s not the story that makes Better Man interesting. It’s all the ways that Gracey jerks the presentation of the familiar framework in unexpected and exuberant ways. He leaves the stale narrative framework intact, but executes it with a colorful joie de vivre, like one of those early century city hall buildings renovated by an art collective.

We see these strengths most of all in the direction of the musical numbers. Some of these sequences had me prostrate on the floor, bowing at the glory of these brilliantly staged and choreographed musical numbers. Some are intimate, some are angry, and some are epic mini-masterpieces. None is better than “Rock DJ,” a five-minute single-shot summary of Williams’ boy band Take That rise to glory, featuring elaborate props, multiple costume changes, and deep-focus, cast-of-hundreds synchronized city street dancing. Again, in a single shot, like this is freaking La La Land.

The runner up is probably “Let Me Entertain You” near the climax of the film that sees a much-hyped concert at Knebworth Festival turn into a monkey-on-monkey battle. This scene is the culmination of a motif through the film of Williams seeing evil-monkey versions of himself when he’s facing doubt or demons. The gimmick is always a bit jarring, and I was ready to pan it as unnecessary, until I realized it was setting up the huge payoff of an all-out musical-fantasy war scene that’s like Woodstock meets Helm’s Deep.

I have no issues with the technical implementation of the CGI monkey, but I do have a complaint about one of its side effects, which is that its artificiality actually distracts from how good the musical direction is here. Compare that to The Greatest Showman, where the physicality of Hugh Jackman and Zach Efron downing shots and tossing around props is half the fun of “The Other Side.” Better Man has all that energy, but with a very artificial CGI creature at the center of it, it feels a bit flattened and fake. It diminishes some of the tactility.

Gracey is also toying with some interesting, almost abstract depictions of Williams’ demons: besides the flashes of evil chimps, he uses shadowy cinematography and weird coloring and abrupt time-jumps that show a strong sense for telling cinematic stories. It’s not groundbreaking in the overall landscape of cinema, but amid this specific candy-coated biopic jukebox musical, it’s bold and effective.

Again, I’m not convinced that all of these interesting ideas line up and build on each other. For that matter, I’m not even 100% locked in that Better Man is actually an improvement on Greatest Showman, though I do probably give it the edge. All this commotion serves such a painfully by-the-numbers story. But the mere fact that the film is this fun given its wackadoodle pitch is a massive triumph. Better Man is way more interesting and energetic than it has any right to be. So far in his career, Michael Gracey has elevated two films pre-broken by problematic loglines thanks to some really exciting direction and staging. I will sign a petition to have Hollywood fast-track the next Gracey musical, and maybe this one can be something other than a misguided biopic.

Is It Good?

Good (5/8)

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Dan is the founder and head critic of The Goods. Follow Dan on Letterboxd. Join the Discord for updates and discussion.