This Robbie Williams biopic famously has its subject portrayed on-screen by a Weta-created CG ape, telling the singer's story from insecure childhood through to troubled boyband glory days and his significant solo ups and downs, narrated by Williams along the way. The story may be one of typical and familiar rise/fall/redemption, but better man tells it in a way that is both interesting and surprisingly intimate to watch. The Robbie Williams back catalogue is used quite sparingly and selectively and proves robust enough to sustain the jukebox-musical-style format applied here, but the song sequences are also presented in very energetic and visually inventive ways, often emotionally quite affecting. The key relationships and the artist's evolution are also delivered well. This film is by its style and genre necessarily a different beast to the at-times harrowingly honest Netflix documentary series, but it does not shy away from Robbie's addictions, self-destructive behaviour and mental health issues. With Jonno Davies doing excellent and convincing work as the star's mo-capped on-screen presence, whether the ape conceit is a metaphor for performers, a way of viewing Robbie more objectively or a way to evoke a sympathetic response to a wide-eyed animal representation will be down to interpretation (given that this is very much told from Robbie Williams's perspective), but Better Man proves to be an interesting and successful creation in its own terms.
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