Yes, I agree with you.

 

One more official video about movie how it had been done - aslo keeping it before watching the movie itself.

 

 

Weta FX are some of the best at what they do for feature films, but, by their own admission, a lot of what they do are stunts and fight sequences. Even with Weta’s motion-capture transformations from actor to dragon or actor to ape, the usual way of shooting is to make the environment for motion capture as controlled as possible. Doing on-set MoCap to turn Robbie Williams into the dancing and singing monkey-version of himself in “Better Man” was the exact opposite of how Weta FX usually works. Big crowds, intricate dance choreography, and the very act of singing itself all set new obstacles for the visual effects studio to overcome.

 

Weta FX has gotten plenty of practice animating creatures, but the breathing and particular muscle efforts involved in singing required even more innovation from the visual effects studio. “We had to do a lot of motion studies [with regard to singing] to make all that sound and all of that energy and all of that breath come out of a CG character,” animation supervisor Dave Clayton said. “It’s not just moving the lips. It’s so much more than that.”

 

In the video below, you can watch members of the “Better Man” VFX team as well as Williams and director Michael Gracey break down their process for giving Williams (as well as actor Jonno Davies, who doubles for Williams) his simian shape in “Better Man.”

 

https://www.indiewire.com/features/craft/be...eta-1235078212/

 

Seems it's some Canadian review on the movie.

 

Totally bananas Robbie Williams biopic Better Man monkeys around in the best possible way

 

 

In 2019, director Dexter Fletcher injected razzle and dazzle into the pop star bio-pic genre when he made Rocketman, a sumptuous musical about the rise, fall and rise again of Elton John, a dandy British recording artist from the 1970s with daddy issues, gold records and a raging cocaine habit. Flamboyant, theatrical, and with dark undertones, the film shouted its belief in the power of music as it sang and danced its way to a redemptive conclusion.

 

Now here comes Michael Gracey, tasked to make a biopic about Robbie Williams, a British chart-topper from the 1990s with daddy issues, gold records and a raging cocaine habit. There are no rules saying the Australian filmmaker could not make a brooding but fantastical musical about a musician’s rises, falls, redemption, etc. But how could he do so without being accused of stealing Rocketman’s jet fuel?

 

Hold my banana, Gracey said.

 

In Better Man, Williams is portrayed by a CGI chimp-man – flat nose, head-to-toe hair and everything. (Williams voices his adult monkey-person self.) Call it a stunt, call it daft, call it Rocketman Meets Planet of the Apes, but don’t forget to call Gracey when the Academy Award nominations come out. Better Man is a triumph of cheek and imagination. Gracey attempts much but actually manages to accomplish all that he set out to do.

 

In an early scene, Williams’s showbiz-minded father tells his boy that an entertainer needs to risk it all – “whatever it takes.” Good advice. Gracey, who also co-wrote the film, took it. As did the father, a boozing small-time entertainer played by Steve Pemberton, who later abandons his wife and young son to chase his own limelight.

 

Why is Williams a chimp? Because that is how he sees himself, as a dancing monkey, hired to please and amuse. His dad, a devotee of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., drilled a give-them-what-they-paid-for ethos into his wide-eyed son.

 

The story begins in Stoke-on-Trent, an industrial centre in Staffordshire, England. The city is portrayed as dreary, all soot, cobblestones and grubby pubs. (Why do all British stories always start in these gritty places? Doesn’t anyone grow up in lovely Cornwall or the bucolic Cotswolds?) After stealing the show in an elementary school production of The Pirates of Penzance, we fast forward to Williams as the youngest member of the successful boy band Take That. He dares to steal the microphone from the group’s lead singer during a performance.

 

He’s brazen and ambitious but plagued by anxiety and self-doubt. Unmanageable, he’s kicked out of Take That, but rebounds as a solo star with hits such as Angel and She’s the One. He gets the girl too, but none of it is enough. Moody boozing and coke binging ensues.

 

Aesthetically, Better Man is surreal and high-styled. Recreated concert performances are wild – the Knebworth Park scene literally goes ape – and the choreographed numbers are sophisticated.

 

Musician biopic tropes are not avoided: the shifty manager, the boyhood chum left behind, the gold records smashed in a mansion-trashing meltdown. An underwater scene looks great but drowns in metaphor.

 

I’m convinced Williams would not be a sympathetic figure if he were played by a flesh-and-blood actor. His self-pity is certainly unattractive. And, yet, his redemption feels earned by the time the film arrives to an outrageously sentimental finale involving a performance of the song My Way. The irony of Better Man is that a chimpanzee representation makes the man all the more human.

 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/r...keys-around-in/

Movie Review – Better Man (2024)

 

December 19, 2024 by Robert Kojder

 

 

During a conversation exploring the possibility of a biopic, British popstar Robbie Williams told well-regarded musical director Michael Gracey that he saw himself as a monkey performing for others. That became the window into telling the story of this singer/songwriter with Better Man, a film that, as the title implies, also shows that Robbie Williams is self-aware of his flaws, mistakes, and shortcomings without being afraid to put them front and center. Yes, rather than go through the arduous casting process, Michael Gracey ran with that comment literally, making the creative choice to have the pop star played by a CGI monkey (voiced by Jonno Davies, with Robbie Williams lending his vocals.)

 

It’s a smart move to roll a short clip of subject and filmmaker conversing before the film starts proper, not just because other parts of the world might not be familiar with Robbie Williamss music (consistently accidentally reading it as a biopic about musician Robin Williams if you’re anything like me), but also since this is such a bold concept for a biopic that it’s helpful to get an idea of what this man looks like and the personality he puts out there before it’s all monkey business.

 

Going one step further, this turns out to not fall into the trappings of a flailing gimmick but ties into themes of pressures of the music industry, fame causing stunted behavior, family drama, and an unflinching portrayal of self that doesn’t smooth over any rough edges. Better Man is an invigorating biopic; a shot of adrenaline to the most overplayed, clichéd genre. After this, no one should be allowed to make biopics (at least ones about musicians) unless they have an equally creative angle or some compelling X factor behind it. Simply put, this film puts most recent offerings from the genre to shame, especially the ones that get trotted out at the end of every year as familiar awards bait.

 

Even though the life trajectory and story beats aren’t anything new to anyone who has ever seen a biopic about a musician before, it gets to be told with boundless imagination, typically coming from several dazzling musical sequences. Not only are they dynamic in presentation (whether it be jubilantly unfolding across the streets of London or something more melancholy regarding fatherly abandonment), but they are sometimes highwire concepts themselves; Better Man has one of the most thrilling, fantastically clever, visually stunning, and exciting takes on battling one’s demons.

 

The characters (including Robbie’s family, friends, lover, hell, and even Oasis) don’t interact or react to Robbie Williams as a monkey. It’s a visual treat for us (this film would fall apart without the astonishingly expressive technical wizardry from Weta, who already have proven themselves as outstanding in this field when it comes to the recent Planet of the Apes movies) but another personal, self-deprecating, honest interpretation of how Robbie saw himself during these life stages. Initially, this feels like it will end up as a missed opportunity for further creativity or humor. One of the more surprising elements here is that the filmmakers (with Michael Gracey co-writing alongside Oliver Cole and Simon Gleeson) are playing this material straight and not going for laughs. That confidence pays off, allowing a maximalist, melodramatic side to come out with sincere, absorbing emotional heft.

 

That story follows a standard rise and fall structure, with Robbie Williams finding inspiration from his initially supportive singing father (Steve Pemberton), exhibiting a relatable drive to make his grandmother (Alison Steadman proud, getting his start in boy band Take That before his insecurities and worsening substance abuse and egocentric behavior gets him kicked out, stumbling into a rocky relationship with Nicole Appleton (Raechelle Banno), and then not only finding the courage to put some meaningful lyrics out into the world through a successful solo career but managing the anxieties that come with performing in front of humongous crowds while constantly struggling with drug addiction.

 

Some of those aspects feel glossed over and aren’t as explored as they possibly could have been (the film is already 135 minutes, but some of it is given a broad strokes treatment), but it’s affecting anyway due to the creativity, artistry, musical numbers, and blunt honesty enhancing those character dynamics. Better Man is a biopic that starts with a confessional about being a narcissist and having a punchable face and ends up somewhere beautifully moving that perfectly captures the essence of that title. There is also a healthy dose of Frank Sinatra here, given that he was a major source of inspiration for Robbie Williams, so let’s say he and Michael Gracey did this biopic their way, and the result is something no one should want any other way.

 

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★

 

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com

 

https://www.flickeringmyth.com/movie-review-better-man-2024/

20.12.24 update

 

Awards Nominations (33) for Better Man by far:

 

Hollywood Music In Media Awards (HMMA) 2024

- 20.11

- Best Original Song - Feature Film (Robbie Williams - Forbidden Road)

- Best Music Themed Film, Biopic or Musical (Paul Currie, Michael Gracey, Craig McMahon, Coco Xiaolu, MaJules Daly)

 

Rolling Stone UK Awards 2024

- 28.11

- The Film Award (Better Man) -

Winner

 

Washington DC Area Film Critics Association Awards (WAFCA) 2024

- 08.12

- Best Motion Capture (Jonno Davies)

 

Indiana Film Journalists Association (IFJA) Awards 2024

- 16.12

- Best Vocal/Motion Capture Performance (Robbie Williams, Jonno Davies)

- Best Stunt/Movement Choreography (Slavisa Ivanovic, Ashey Wallen, Nicholas Daines, Spencer Susser, Tim Wong)

- Best Special Effects (Luke Millar, Scott MacIntyre)

- Original Vision Award

 

Golden Globes 2025

- 05.01

- Best Original Song (Robbie Williams - Forbidden Road)

 

Critics Choice Awards 2025

- 12.01

- Best Visual Effects (Luke Millar, David Clayton, Keith Herft, Peter Stubbs)

 

The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Awards 2025

- 07.02

- Best Film

- Best Direction in Film (Michael Gracey)

- Best Screenplay in Film (Michael Gracey, Oliver Cole, Simon Gleeson)

- Best Lead Actor in Film (Jonno Davies)

- Best Supporting Actress in Film

- Best Supporting Actor in Film

- Best Cinematography in Film

- Best Sound in Film

- Best Original Score in Film

- Best Soundtrack

- Best Original Song (Robbie Williams - Forbidden Road)

- Best Visual Effects or Animation

- Best Editing in Film presented by Spectrum Films

- Best Production Design in Film

- Best Costume Design in Film

- Best Casting in Film

 

The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) International Awards 2025

- 07.02

- Best Film

- Best Lead Actor in Film (Jonno Davies)

- Best Supporting Actress in Film (Alison Steadman)

- Best Supporting Actor in Film (Damon Herriman)

- Best Direction in Film (Michael Gracey)

- Best Screenplay in Film (Michael Gracey, Oliver Cole, Simon Gleeson)

 

Society of Composers and Lyricists (SCL) Award 2025

- 12.02

- Outstanding Original Song for a Comedy or Musical Visual Media Production (Robbie Williams - Forbidden Road)

 

Yes, I agree with you.

 

One more official video about movie how it had been done - aslo keeping it before watching the movie itself.

 

 

Weta FX are some of the best at what they do for feature films, but, by their own admission, a lot of what they do are stunts and fight sequences. Even with Weta’s motion-capture transformations from actor to dragon or actor to ape, the usual way of shooting is to make the environment for motion capture as controlled as possible. Doing on-set MoCap to turn Robbie Williams into the dancing and singing monkey-version of himself in “Better Man” was the exact opposite of how Weta FX usually works. Big crowds, intricate dance choreography, and the very act of singing itself all set new obstacles for the visual effects studio to overcome.

 

Weta FX has gotten plenty of practice animating creatures, but the breathing and particular muscle efforts involved in singing required even more innovation from the visual effects studio. “We had to do a lot of motion studies [with regard to singing] to make all that sound and all of that energy and all of that breath come out of a CG character,” animation supervisor Dave Clayton said. “It’s not just moving the lips. It’s so much more than that.”

 

In the video below, you can watch members of the “Better Man” VFX team as well as Williams and director Michael Gracey break down their process for giving Williams (as well as actor Jonno Davies, who doubles for Williams) his simian shape in “Better Man.”

 

https://www.indiewire.com/features/craft/be...eta-1235078212/

 

 

 

That shot at the bottom of a young Rob is amazing . It's fascinating to know how they did this ..

Seems it's some Canadian review on the movie.

 

Totally bananas Robbie Williams biopic Better Man monkeys around in the best possible way

 

 

In 2019, director Dexter Fletcher injected razzle and dazzle into the pop star bio-pic genre when he made Rocketman, a sumptuous musical about the rise, fall and rise again of Elton John, a dandy British recording artist from the 1970s with daddy issues, gold records and a raging cocaine habit. Flamboyant, theatrical, and with dark undertones, the film shouted its belief in the power of music as it sang and danced its way to a redemptive conclusion.

 

Now here comes Michael Gracey, tasked to make a biopic about Robbie Williams, a British chart-topper from the 1990s with daddy issues, gold records and a raging cocaine habit. There are no rules saying the Australian filmmaker could not make a brooding but fantastical musical about a musician’s rises, falls, redemption, etc. But how could he do so without being accused of stealing Rocketman’s jet fuel?

 

Hold my banana, Gracey said.

 

In Better Man, Williams is portrayed by a CGI chimp-man – flat nose, head-to-toe hair and everything. (Williams voices his adult monkey-person self.) Call it a stunt, call it daft, call it Rocketman Meets Planet of the Apes, but don’t forget to call Gracey when the Academy Award nominations come out. Better Man is a triumph of cheek and imagination. Gracey attempts much but actually manages to accomplish all that he set out to do.

 

In an early scene, Williams’s showbiz-minded father tells his boy that an entertainer needs to risk it all – “whatever it takes.” Good advice. Gracey, who also co-wrote the film, took it. As did the father, a boozing small-time entertainer played by Steve Pemberton, who later abandons his wife and young son to chase his own limelight.

 

Why is Williams a chimp? Because that is how he sees himself, as a dancing monkey, hired to please and amuse. His dad, a devotee of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., drilled a give-them-what-they-paid-for ethos into his wide-eyed son.

 

The story begins in Stoke-on-Trent, an industrial centre in Staffordshire, England. The city is portrayed as dreary, all soot, cobblestones and grubby pubs. (Why do all British stories always start in these gritty places? Doesn’t anyone grow up in lovely Cornwall or the bucolic Cotswolds?) After stealing the show in an elementary school production of The Pirates of Penzance, we fast forward to Williams as the youngest member of the successful boy band Take That. He dares to steal the microphone from the group’s lead singer during a performance.

 

He’s brazen and ambitious but plagued by anxiety and self-doubt. Unmanageable, he’s kicked out of Take That, but rebounds as a solo star with hits such as Angel and She’s the One. He gets the girl too, but none of it is enough. Moody boozing and coke binging ensues.

 

Aesthetically, Better Man is surreal and high-styled. Recreated concert performances are wild – the Knebworth Park scene literally goes ape – and the choreographed numbers are sophisticated.

 

Musician biopic tropes are not avoided: the shifty manager, the boyhood chum left behind, the gold records smashed in a mansion-trashing meltdown. An underwater scene looks great but drowns in metaphor.

 

I’m convinced Williams would not be a sympathetic figure if he were played by a flesh-and-blood actor. His self-pity is certainly unattractive. And, yet, his redemption feels earned by the time the film arrives to an outrageously sentimental finale involving a performance of the song My Way. The irony of Better Man is that a chimpanzee representation makes the man all the more human.

 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/r...keys-around-in/

 

 

 

What a good description "the shifty manager," which seemed to be rge running theme surrounding 90's bands .

 

Hands off to the actors in this movie , they seem to have fone a great job ...

Better Man Saved the Music Biopic The story of Robbie Williams' life is proof there's still life in this subgenre

 

 

https://consequence.net/2024/12/better-man-...liams-biopic/2/

 

The story of Robbie Williams' life is proof there's still life in this subgenre

 

A-

 

Directed by

Michael Gracey

Cast

Robbie Williams, Jonno Davies, Steve Pemberton, Alison Steadman, Damon Herriman, Raechelle Banno, Anthony Hayes, Kate Mulvany

Studio

Paramount

Advertisement

 

Liz Shannon Miller

December 19, 2024 | 1:54pm ET

 

Prior to watching the movie Better Man, my expectations were low: For one thing, CGI simians don’t interest me that much, as a rule. (I have seen very few of the movies where they rule the planet.) Also, like a lot of people outside the British Commonwealth, the full impact of Robbie Williams’ celebrity hasn’t penetrated my consciousness — the number of Williams songs I could name was one, and that was primarily thanks to the infamous music video for “Rock DJ.”

 

Most importantly of all: It was a music biopic, two words used to sum up a subgenre of movies that has persisted despite increased criticism. Really, for a lot of people, December 21st, 2007 is the day that the music biopic died — for on that day, a little film called Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story was released in theaters. The parody film directed by Jake Kasdan was not a financial success (grossing $20 million worldwide on a $35 million production budget), but its pitch-perfect skewering of the tropes that make up so many of these stories effectively neutered a lot of their power from that point on.

 

Because really, how many times can we see the same cycle on screen? A person from humble roots uses their gifts to attain fame and fortune, until the perils of fame and fortune (drugs, bad sex decisions, deeply felt personal insecurities) threaten to cost them everything. The tragedies are the ones where the artist lost themselves to the monster, but no matter what, the happy ending is found in the memory of the music they gave us while they were still here. (Even if they’re still alive at the time of the movie’s making.)

 

Why do these movies persevere in being made? There’s no shortage of reasons. We’re fascinated, after all, by the lives of musical artists (sites like Consequence owe their existence in no small part to this fact). There’s always a thrill in seeing an actor we like attempt to channel a star we also like (see, just as the most recent example, Timothée Chalamet take on the role of Bob Dylan). And we love origin stories, and the thrill of seeing a song come to life for the first time.

 

Still, there’s no denying that the genre has gotten stale, in a way that demands innovation. That’s an issue Better Man is well aware it faces from the jump, and so from the jump it makes bold choices that ultimately turn the feature-length examination of a famous performer’s life into something transcendent.

 

It really does start with the choice to depict Williams in the form of a CGI monkey, too. In a video featurette posted two months ago, Gracey explained in a sitdown with Williams that “in your own words, you would refer to being dragged up on stage to perform like a monkey. I immediately thought about portraying you not as we see you, but as how you see yourself. It immediately clicked in a way that I was like, with your voice and that monkey, I am going to see you and relate to you in a way that is going to be more engaging than yet another musical biopic.”

 

The use of the monkey gives this movie so many gifts. Because of his experience with digital characters, Gracey hired Paddington cinematographer Erik Wilson to film the movie, and brought in Weta FX (which knows something about digital monkeys, having worked on King Kong and the Planet of the Apes franchise) to handle the creation of “Robbie.”

 

The performance ends up being essentially a collaboration between the visual effects artists, Williams as the vocal performer, and Jonno Davies as the guy physically on set every day, playing Robbie Williams before his CGI makeover. (Paramount is in fact campaigning for Davies to get a Lead Actor nomination at the Oscars this year. Funnily enough, Davies actually does look a fair bit like a young Williams in real life — even if he weren’t in monkey form for the final film, it would still be good casting.)

 

While it might lead to a much more complicated filmmaking experience overall, one way in which it simplifies things is that no fancy makeup or computer-enhanced de-aging is needed for Davies and Williams to play Robbie from a teenager to a grown man. (And frankly, it’s less surreal to watch Williams in monkey form than it is to watch digitally smoothed Tom Hanks and Robin Wright play horny teens in Robert Zemeckis’s Here.)

 

And this approach goes deeper than you might expect. Taking the Paddington approach to its protagonist instantly imbues the movie with a cheeky energy — an energy that even newcomers to Williams’ story will come to find very apt. It also has further significance given Williams’ complicated relationship with celebrity: In voice-over, he freely admits that when band manager Nigel Martin-Smith (played by Damon Herriman) assigned him the nickname of Robbie, he hated it, but “Robbie became a character, something I could hide behind.”

 

True to its genre, Better Man goes through the familiar cycles of fame and fortune enabling addiction and depression. However, the monkey gives Williams even more of a persona to hide behind, which culminates in a blunt honesty to the depiction of Williams’ darker times, an acknowledgment of his more ugly behavior that other movies with the direct involvement of the star might soft-pedal.

 

What’s also essential here is that even beyond the monkey, Better Man is fun. Gracey utilizes his skill with directing more straightforward musicals like The Greatest Showman to create real spectacle, with some sequences dipping into the realm of fantasy or supporting a montage. The setting for Robbie’s big Take That audition transforms from an ordinary rehearsal space to a club setting Ol’ Blue Eyes would have called home. His meet-cute with a fellow pop star becomes an all-singing, all-dancing duet that also tracks the ups and downs of their relationship over the course of years. The most climactic number descends into an all-out apocalyptic battle between all of Robbie’s various selves, who have been tormenting him throughout the film with his own insecurities.

 

 

The highlight is possibly the “Rock DJ” sequence, which covers the rise of Take That (the boy band that gave Williams his early fame) and is perhaps the most exuberant five minutes of film I’ve seen all year. Here’s a clip of just the first minute. It goes on like this for quite a bit longer.

 

Better Man isn’t the first movie of this genre to lean hard into serving as an actual musical — a recent example is Rocketman, which also used the jukebox musical approach, wielding multiple Elton John songs in sometimes surreal ways to depict Reginald Dwight’s rise to stardom. (And it’s worth noting that Gracey was an executive producer on Rocketman after originally signing on to direct the movie — he was eventually unable to take it on due to The Greatest Showman, and Dexter Fletcher went on to direct the final version.)

 

What’s so inspiring about Better Man is that it represents the culmination of such a smart collection of choices, ones that add up to create a true portrait of an artist. The movie doesn’t shortchange the craft that goes into the creation of a pop song; a scene featuring Robbie’s first collaboration with songwriter Guy Chambers (played by Tom Budge) actually proves informative about the actual details of songwriting, while delivering this banger of a quote: “Songs are only valuable if they cost you something.”

 

What they cost, we find through this genre, is sometimes worth the price. There’s a might to the way the great movie musicals use cinema and music in combination to create something transcendent; sequences which somehow manage to capture the way a great song can make us feel. What emerges is a celebration of the power of music itself, and the answer to why the music biopic persists: They’re stories of humans driven by hope and dreams, trying to connect through a primal force that, despite all efforts to turn it into a “product,” can still connect with people across all boundaries.

 

Williams’ music isn’t held up as groundbreaking or world-changing. He only promises the audience “a right proper entertaining.” Yet by the end, Better Man reminds us why that matters. Why we need that.

 

Better Man debuts in theaters in limited release on December 25th, and will be released wide on January 10th, 2025.

Edited December 20, 2024Dec 20 by Better Man

It shouldn’t work, but it does – which is perhaps the story of Williams’ career. -_-

 

Better Man review – chimply irresistible

 

Ridiculously enjoyable Robbie Williams biopic with the bold gambit of having a CG-chimpanzee in the title role paying off handsomely.

 

If you had asked me at the top end of 2024 how excited I felt about seeing a biopic of Robbie Williams directed by the bloke who made The Greatest Showman, the answer would have been a swift “Not at all”. Now, as a fairly hodawful year draws to a close, I sit here with egg on my face, owing Michael Gracey an apology, because it turns out Better Man, the musical documenting the rise-and-fall-and-rise of British pop’s Cheekiest Chappy, is genuinely good. But in my defence, when this project was announced there was absolutely no mention of The Monkey. Because, unbeknownst to most prior to the film’s premiere, Robbie Williams would not be portrayed in his biopic by some fresh-faced Sylvia Young graduate vying for his first GQ profile. He would instead be played by a CGI chimpanzee.

This gimmick came out of a comment Williams once made about feeling like a performing monkey. It’s a stroke of genius, immediately removing any potential comparison between a young actor and the man himself while also allowing Williams to voice his own avatar, and opening up possibilities for the fantastical in a more outlandish way than Bryan Singer managed with Bohemian Rhapsody or Dexter Fletcher with Rocketman. Crucially, it works because it is taken seriously by the film; there are no jokes about it, no references to it, no reason given, and no other apes present. It shouldn’t work, but it does – which is perhaps the story of Williams’ career.

 

In the film’s opening, Williams refers to his performance style as ‘cabaret’, which is a helpful way to think about the framing of his biopic. Rather than a self-serious tale of artistic integrity and sacrifice, Gracey and Williams have crafted something affectionately self-deprecating and satirical. Better Man works because it is that rare biopic which acknowledges its inherent ridiculousness, poking fun not only at the star machine but Williams himself (who, regardless of your opinion of his music, has always been quite open about his shortcomings).

 

At the same time, there are some surprisingly weighty moments – Williams refers to his then-girlfriend Nicole Appleton being pressured to get an abortion by her record label in order to maintain her squeaky-clean popstar image, and there’s no shortage of debauchery – seeing a monkey do lines and get a handjob in a nightclub is quite something – positioned as seedy rather than aspirational. Most shocking is the culmination of the CGI gimmick: a hell-for-leather scene where hundreds of iterations of Monkey Robbie face off in an epic battle royale.

 

It is that rare biopic which chooses to treat stardom for the three-ring circus it is, complete with lavish set-pieces of all Williams’ hits (justice for my personal favourite, ‘Advertising Space’, which doesn’t get a look-in) and an ace supporting turn from Steven Pemberton as Williams’ showboating absent father. Bombastic and knowingly ridiculous, Better Man comes together with assured ease and persistent rough-around-the- edges charm. If there’s one major complaint, it’s that Gracey wasted the title ‘The Greatest Showman’ on his previous film when it fits so aptly here.

 

https://lwlies.com/reviews/better-man/

Edited December 20, 2024Dec 20 by Sydney11

I moved all today's Forbidden Road posts to this thread:

http://www.buzzjack.com/forums/index.php?s...20&start=20

Better Man Saved the Music Biopic The story of Robbie Williams' life is proof there's still life in this subgenre

 

 

https://consequence.net/2024/12/better-man-...liams-biopic/2/

 

.

 

Thanks for posting this review, Tess!

 

Consequence is one of the most respected pop media sources in Internet.

They write a lof of reviews on albums, movies, songs. Following them and read during last 7-8 years.

 

So, A- is amazing mark.

Usually 2-3 movies per award season could get A, etc.

Robbie Williams and director Michael Gracey on their bananas, CGI monkey- featuring biopic ‘Better Man’: “It’s healing”

Williams also speculated on Liam Gallagher’s reaction to his role on the movie and teased a new album featuring Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi

 

Robbie Williams and director Michael Gracey have spoken to NME about Better Man, the new Williams biopic featuring a CGI monkey (performed by actor Jonno Davies) in the lead role. The duo revealed the logic behind the unusual choice, the film’s no-holds-barred depiction of Williams’ drug and alcohol addictions and why we empathise more with animals than human beings in cinema. Williams also speculated on Liam Gallagher’s reaction to his role in the film and opened up about his forthcoming 13th studio album, which features Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi and British hard-rock legend Glenn Hughes on one track.

 

The monkey came about because, Robbie, Michael asked what animal you might be. You said…

 

https://www.nme.com/features/film-interview...terview-3821636

 

Full video version of this interview.

 

https://deadline.com/2024/12/better-man-scr...pic-1236239330/

 

The whole movie script is out! 😱

Definitely will read the movie script after its premiere.

How many scripts have we ever read in our lifes? :)

 

+

 

Some new promo interview

 

 

A few more interviews:

 

A great letter in the end!

 

 

I feel a chemistry between Rob and this lady :)

Because...well, I have a chemistry between me and this lady too :))

 

Anyway, I suppose there is a good chance to see Robbie and Estopa Spanish band at the same scene next July.

 

https://deadline.com/2024/12/better-man-scr...pic-1236239330/

 

The whole movie script is out! 😱

 

 

Thank you Frogec. Will definitely read after seeing movie ..

Edited December 21, 2024Dec 21 by Sydney11

@1870499581378564192

I went to watch the Lion King movie today at our local cinema.

 

There was a great big cardboard cut out for Better Man in the foyer and a PG trailer came up on screen before our film.

 

My daughter saw the trailer and although she is a Robbie fan and obviously knows the words to all his songs throughout her childhood :lol: -she said the whole monkey thing put her off actually going to see it.

 

I told her in all the reviews it stated that you forget about the monkey after the first ten minutes but she didn't seem convinced....

 

It occurred to me whether other people will think like that?

This is my concern either, Laura. I watched many trailer now and despite the monkey is very natural and Rob's eyes are the monkey's eyes I would have preferred a real face even if it would not look like Rob. The reviews for the movie are in general very good, the promotion intense, but now it is the general public who will have to buy it. If this movie is no success I don't want to be in Rob's head.

So, watched the movie yesterday.

Better Man is SO good!!!

 

The movie is full of metaphors, with great casting and with many creative moments. And yes, I got the tears for 2 or 3 times :)

 

I will not say more - waiting for your reaction!

 

40-min interview with Jonno.

He starts on 18:00.