Better Man

 

What Aussie director Michael Gracey's The Greatest Showman (2017) may have lacked in historical authenticity, it certainly made up for in spectacle and verve.

Gracey has applied his substantial chops for creating high-powered music videos to his latest feature film, "Better Man," the blood-and-sinew biography of British pop star Robbie Williams, who was a member of the boy band Take That in the early 90s and later a record-breaking solo performer.

Williams' rise-and-fall story involves the all-too-familiar catastrophic descent into drug and alcohol addiction and mental illness that accompany stardom. As an ingenious twist, Gracey subs a CGI chimpanzee for Williams, whom we meet as a child in the English Midlands (motion-capture actor Asmara Feik) who idolizes his father (Steve Pemberton), a modestly talented crooner, and dreams of being not just a great singer but a great "entertainer," like Frank, Dean and Sammy.

Williams begins battling the demons of insecurity and isolation as a child, and the skirmishes get worse as the years progress and his fame builds. He finds stability during this time in his loving grandmother Betty (Alison Steadman), who stokes young Robert's need to be special and makes up for his father's inattention and then absence and his mother's (Kate Mulvaney) busyness keeping the food on the table and a roof over their heads.

Though Williams narrates his story, Jonno Davies is the motion-capture actor playing the mature Williams with stunning agility, and Adam Tucker provides the soaring vocals on the baker's dozen songs in the picture.

To Gracey's credit, the CGI chimp doesn't come off as gimmicky as one might think. In fact, it's amazingly seamless, even during the big production numbers. Rock DJ is a mind-blower.

Williams' legion of fans -- among whom I do not count myself, to be honest -- will undoubtedly lap up the movie's cinematic indulgence and party fever like kittens to milk. Cinephiles, like myself, will be delighted by the film's audacity, which matches Williams' own bravura, beat-for-beat.