Yes - they did include Germany Tess. ^_^

 

I'm sure in the UK it won't be around much longer which is a shame because it is making slow but steady numbers each day around the world

 

 

Thanks Laura , love getting these updates

Went to see it again tonight with my daughters. ^_^

 

They both really enjoyed it but were a bit irked by the timeline jumping about.

 

They kept asking me "did that really happen? Did this really happen?" :lol:

 

My favourite scene is Knebworth. Both to enjoy in awe the size of the crowd and the surreal moment where he slays his demons.

 

Both the Rock DJ and She's the one scenes are amazing too.

 

Also the girls thought the movie should have included his meeting Ayda -which I do agree with to a certain extent.

 

Glad I saw it again. :cheer:

 

 

Well according to those that know it all in social media there is going to be a Better Man 2 but then they would have had to take something else out that they felt was important to the story . I would love to have heard even a little bit of No Regrets somewhere in the movie, I think it would have fitted really well . I was chatting to a neighbour yesterday who said he saw Roy Keane in the Overlap talking about it & couldn't believe it , my neighbour said he will watch it when it comes on streaming services. I think it might do well on there. more & more people these days ordering food & watching movies at home .

 

Great you got to see it again Laura ;)

 

Better Man: musical biopic of Robbie Williams as performing monkey will entertain you

 

Daniel O'Brien

 

Better Man: musical biopic of Robbie Williams as performing monkey will entertain you

© Copyright © Daily Maverick , All Rights Reserved

 

 

I can remember the mixed feelings I experienced as a teenager in 1997, buying Life Thru A Lens – my first Robbie Williams album – cautious it was too poppy to sit with my humble-but-growing CD collection of artists that would later be known as Britpop.

 

Yet, the album’s inherent cheekiness combined with moments of vulnerability made it something I was comfortable to include as part of the soundtrack to my adolescent life. I was reminded of these feelings watching Better Man (2024), director Michael Gracey’s new biopic musical that charts the story of Williams’ journey to superstardom, along with his self-consciousness regarding where he fits as an artist and person.

 

The singer-songwriter is present throughout the film, albeit off-screen in the form of the narrator, guiding us through his history: growing up in Stoke-on-Trent, the son of divorced parents, his joining and dismissal from Take That, the reckless partying, his brief relationship with Nicole Appleton, and his own solo career. There is often a brutal honesty in these events, where no one (including Williams) comes off particularly well.

 

Insecurity, the search for self-authenticity and the desire for acceptance are the three elements that fuel the film. “Robbie became a character, something I could hide behind,” says Williams the narrator, offering some rationale for the CGI monkey used to portray the artist. In case you’ve missed the publicity, Williams is “played” by actor Jonno Davies, but in a computerised twist, special visual effects present the performer as a CGI walking-talking-singing-dancing simian.

 

Williams as a chimpanzee is a stylisation choice which seemingly goes unnoticed by other human characters in Better Man. The film is not attempting a sci-fi tone like War for the Planet of the Apes (2017), but to my surprise makes much better use of CGI precisely for that reason.

 

These visual effects serve to remind the viewer of the pure artifice of the music industry and how fabricated identity – particularly that of performers who have no direct control over it – can take its toll. According to the Hollywood industry magazine Variety#

 

However, I wonder if there is also some nod to the 2008 media reports of Williams walking around Los Angeles disguised in a gorilla suit after a three-month period of isolation.

 

Like the suit, or even Damon Albarn’s virtual band, Gorillaz, the chimpanzee avatar provides a liminal role that keeps the performer present and absent at the same time. This is a theme that the film attempts to deal with in both content and form, emphasised through the performer’s off-screen narration.

 

This fragmented, entertainment-led construction of identity is also a continuation of themes explored in The Greatest Showman (2017), also directed by Gracey. Better Man, unlike Gracey’s earlier film, however, strives (in the script at least) for grittier realism, with expletive language from the beginning.

 

This is not a film for young fans, who might anyway only be tangentially aware of Williams through a different animal in Robin Shaw’s adaptation of The Tiger Who Came to Tea (2019), in which the singer provided the central song.

 

What I found particularly engaging about the film is the ordinariness and honesty of Williams. He doesn’t claim to be overly talented but is rather someone who owes his initial fame to his cheeky-chappy persona, often presented as a coping mechanism for dealing with rejection.

 

The film indicates how his desire for attention is presented as the result of the singer’s sometime-absent father, Pete Conway (Steve Pemberton), a struggling performer who lives for the stage but never quite makes it. The young simian is left to contemplate his father’s mantra “You’re either a somebody or a nobody”, which cues some tender moments with his grandmother Betty (Alison Steadman), presented as one of the most positive relationships in his early life.

 

 

Imagery of Williams and Betty at home together on the sofa, embraced in the television glow of The Two Ronnies gives the film a sense of nostalgia. But the unhealthy and unrealistic reverence that goes with global stardom is also presented as a damaging experience that precedes the star’s drug addiction and isolation.

 

These themes are something of a far cry from your average musical film.

 

Characters spontaneously break into songs (Take That or Robbie Williams tracks) in addition to scenes that focus on rehearsals and show performances, sharply reminding us of the constructed reality of pop-star life.

 

The film’s strength lies in portraying the veneer of stratospheric success that masks the human insecurity just below the surface, encapsulated by the CGI monkey modelled on the features of both Williams and actor Jonno Davies. For me, this was one of the best reasons to see it, but if you need more, there is a huge playlist of familiar tracks, including a spectacular high-octane montage of Rock DJ. Go see Better Man and let it entertain you. DM

 

This story was first published in The Conversation. Daniel O'Brien is a Lecturer in the Department of Literature Film and Theatre Studies, the University of Essex.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-za/news/other/better...id=BingNewsVerp

Edited January 22Jan 22 by Sydney11

:huh:

 

Interview for France

 

 

 

Gary Johnstone Music

January 20 at 1:04 PM ·

 

 

I'm not saying I hate that I loved it, but the Robbie Williams biopic was surprising amazing. And not because of the tunes involved, it was just a great biopic. Once you get over the initial shock of the lightning ⚡ 🙈 🤣

It's almost enough for me to repost my rant from this time last year where I got 255k dislikes on a post about Robbie in his boxers on a hotel bed looking at his laptop in his boxers apologising for being a bit rude to everyone who got him where he was in his boxers. He definitely treats Gary Barlow and Guy Chambers fairly in this new film "Better Man", which completely validates what I said a year ago 🙄

Which I wrote in my boxers.

Apart from the always incredible "Angels" (shut up fellow wedding bands, it's a masterpiece and you know it!), the #robbiewillams biopic "Better Man" could almost be classed as a west end musical, featuring other chart topping (/bothering) ballads "She's The One" which features a spectacular dance sequence, "Feel" which is a song I didn't realise I loved (/hated), or 90's club anthem "Relight My Fire" (which in itself almost turned me gay at age 8, not that there's anything wrong with that, I'm just not. I just like the song. Honest. At age 41 I still dance about my living room with other naked men. Covered in Mark Owen's bottled sweat, but it's not gay, we just enjoy the song ok? Stop being so judgemental) IMHO (trying not to get cancelled again - remember my almost viral tirade after the Netflix series?) it's just a great movie that is worth seeing. If you like movies who's protagonist has zero personality flaws whatsoever.

This whole attitude of anyone outside of the UK of "we don't care who he is" is perfect. We don't care who he is either. And we don't care that you don't care who he is. But your not caring who he is, is taking British rock algos through the roof since this movie came out. I suspect even Noel's made enough to pay his divorce bill because of this film.

I'm a singer, writer, guitarist here in Scotland UK and y'all can rip me to shreds in the comments cos I stand by every word I said here 🤣

Robbie for Prime Minister vs Noel for also Prime Minister.

 

https://www.facebook.com/garyjohnstonemusic

Better Man 2024

★★★★ Very very close to a 4 and a 1/2.

 

Nicolette Hogan’s review published on Letterboxd: Watched 25 Oct 2024

 

Movie #3 of the day. (I mean I did log Wreck it Ralph before this but that was just because I'd been watching it in parts throughout the week and had time to kill before this movie so finished it.)

 

Got to go to a special screening followed by a conversation moderated by Sam Levinson with Director Michael Gracey.

All I knew about this was that it was a musical biopic about a man that I thought I wasn't familiar with at all and that he was for some reason portrayed as a Chimpanzee.

 

Sooooooooooooo this totally worked for me. I was honestly shocked how much this worked for me.

First off the acting was great all around. Everyone was perfectly cast and fit their roles so well. Sure I don't know anything about the real people but what was presented here really worked. It is kinda hard for me to single someone out but I really enjoyed everyone. But if anyone deserves a mention of course it's Jonno Davies. So amazing to watch. Would love to see behind the scenes footage of him performing. Even though I haven't seen anything of Robbie Williams I was convinced that Davies totally embodied him. Very happy with all the performances.

I loved the look of this. Great locations. Made me so sad that I never saw Regent Street in person while I was out in London. 😂 The musical numbers were so well shot. There are 4 that really blew me away. I don't think they are spoilers since it's his life so I'll just say the Regent Street number, after he left Take That, when he met Nicole, and I'll just say the Angels moment. 😭😭😭 Although I loved the Feel moment as well. But yeah all the sequences came together so well and were a lot of fun to watch.

 

The music was amazing. I had never heard of a lot of the songs here but there were a couple I did know and just didn't realize they were his. I'm shocked I'd never heard Feel before. That is currently on repeat right now ha ha. Also I did know All Saints, I had their All Saints CD!!! So I was not expecting that connection ha ha.

 

I loved the journey this story took me on. I mean when I think of it it's nothing new to the Biopic genre but I found Robbie to be an interesting character. As someone who struggles with mental health I found his journey easy to connect with and interesting how that was depicted.

I will say my love for this slightly dropped near the end. It started to feel a bit too repetitive and I personally don't like watching movies about addiction and that's what I mean, there was like too much of that. Not fun to watch someone snort cocaine over and over ya know? But I understand, it's a real thing and people deal with that it just gets to be too much for me to watch in movies and ruins my entertainment so that's just a purely personal taste thing for me. And yeah sometimes Robbie as a character was too much ha ha. But nothing felt unnatural or unbelievable.

 

You really see some low lows here but that's why when we get to the happier moments they really feel like high highs. Felt like I was on a roller coaster with this. The journey this took me on was a wonderful surprise. I was not expecting to have this kind of reaction with this ha ha.

For sure would love to own and I do see myself revisiting every now and then especially for those well shot sequences. And the songs are great. Such a blast with this!

 

Now some things Gracey mentioned:

 

- This movie was self financed.

- The final scene was the first thing they shot.

- Robbie Williams held real concerts to film concert scenes for the movie.

- Gracey comes from a Animator background. Mentioned that Animators are obsessed with movement.

- Nicole Appleton was very involved with this and also approved Raechelle Banno's casting. And gave her blessing with shared what was shown here.

- Gracey walked down Regent Street and thought how come no one has shot a musical here and quickly found out why. It took forever to get approval to shoot and right when they were about to shoot the Queen died so they couldn't shoot for another 5 months.

- The Regent Street number was shot in 4 nights.

- They rehearsed whenever they could like hotel rooms, car parks etc.

- Robbie Williams was very impressed with Jonno Davies and how well Davies had captured his mannerisms and especially at different ages of his character.

- And my favorite fact is that Gracey would have a lot of conversations with Robbie Williams where Williams described himself as a performing monkey. This persona he always had on. And that's how the idea was born!

 

https://letterboxd.com/nicolatte_love/film/better-man-2024/

https://x.com/NicoLatte_Love/status/1880043526572109928

 

Edited January 22Jan 22 by Sydney11

@1882298589868671442

‘Better Man’ Review: They Made A Monkey Out Of Robbie Williams – Remember Him !

 

JB Augustine Jan 22 2025

 

Picture Paramount Pictures

 

The first certified bomb of 2025 involves a were-creature, but it is not Wolf Man, believe it or not. No, I am not talking about wolves. I’m talking about an ape, sort of, one that is more CGI monstrosity than beast.

 

Better Man is the season’s latest musical following Mufasa and Wicked (and also Joker: Folie a Deux if you seriously want to count it). The former is also the newest pop star biopic of a Brit, riding the coattails of Rocket Man and Bohemian Rhapsody a couple of years too late.

It chronicles the career of Robbie Williams, a charismatic hitmaker and ruffian who hasn’t had a substantial hit in over 20 years. In the US, his biggest splash was “Millennium,” which parallelled the turn of the last century and made him important enough to justify a duet with Nicole Kidman nobody recalls.

 

If anyone who remembers him, or those songs, saw this movie, they are out of luck as they never get to see his face or those of the actors playing him. For the entire film, Williams is rendered as a talking animated chimp for superficial reasons.

 

They try to explain it – he is a “cheeky monkey,” he feels like a trained circus animal inside, he thinks of himself as “less evolved” – but the idea never makes sense. In the movie, Williams is a chimp from birth and that’s the way it is, barely acknowledged.

All this creative decision does is give Better Man an excuse for some CGI and excess flair. It adds nothing to the story or the experience, and gets distracting before long. When your movie is over two hours, that’s a problem.

 

The pathos and performances are strong enough to carry it, even if you have seen the same basic story several times, but they are hampered by this interminable visual stunt that plays like a poor man’s Kafka. Except, instead of a bug’s life, you have a monkey on your back trying to steal the show. Regardless, I give credit to the effects house WETA for doing an impressive job with the design of the ape. They might win an Oscar and good for them. If there are people dumb enough to throw $100 million at you for something that should only cost a tenth of that, you might as well take the money and run. Stash it for a rainy day. Peter Jackson could try to make another Hobbit movie or Mortal Engines (you never know).

 

No studio is a stranger to throwing cash at something they think is a sure thing, only to stare down the barrel of disappointment. I guess they thought the musical numbers and occasional gay imagery and overtones would get the same crowd Wicked reeled in, but no, it didn’t happen.

 

I can report firsthand that no one aside from me showed up to see Better Man when I went. In fact, attendance must have been so far below expectations that they didn’t care enough to turn up the heat in the theater. I sat, with a deep freeze outside, in a chilly AMC, trying not to fall asleep.

 

That’s the whole truth, but I won’t call Robbie Williams boring. He’s led a compelling life full of drama, shocking moments, and the usual ups and downs of stardom. It’s just that no one took into account if he had the popularity left to make this ship sail, or if replacing his face with a monkey’s was the right promotional move.

 

But, on the bright side, at least we DC fans know what a Detective Chimp musical could be like.

 

https://boundingintocomics.com/movies/movie...s-remember-him/

Edited January 23Jan 23 by Sydney11

As disappointing the review is as much I see the point. Having Rob played by a good looking young actor even if not similar looking to Rob would have drawn more people in, despite the critical acclamation would have been less impressive. I also think that the calculation was that Michael Gracey's name and the songs would be good enough to start an avalanche.

The only positive point I see in the moment that despite calling it a flop no one takes away that the movie is a good one. If the fact that Rob is known now more in the USA for all the wrong reasons is at the end supporting his next endeavors, I am not sure.

CONGRATULATIONS guys!

 

Better Man gets an Oscar nomination just now - Visual Effects.

:banana:

 

 

@1882426041039520110

Well, then he will need to go to the booooring party in the end? :)))

@1882432678743376277

View this post on Instagram

Well, then he will need to go to the booooring party in the end? :)))

 

 

& we should go too :lol:

 

He will love it & so will Ayda ;)

 

Maybe Liam & Noel will go :lol:

'Hey Liam...' - you know how to continue this phrase!

And this phrase from Kodak Theater scene would be even more crazy :lol:

As disappointing the review is as much I see the point. Having Rob played by a good looking young actor even if not similar looking to Rob would have drawn more people in, despite the critical acclamation would have been less impressive. I also think that the calculation was that Michael Gracey's name and the songs would be good enough to start an avalanche.

The only positive point I see in the moment that despite calling it a flop no one takes away that the movie is a good one. If the fact that Rob is known now more in the USA for all the wrong reasons is at the end supporting his next endeavors, I am not sure.

 

 

Did you get to see the movie Elisabeth . It's really good .