BETTER MAN – Review

Does BETTER MAN make a monkey out of British musician Robbie Williams? Well, no, but it does make an ape, specifically a chimp, out of the one-time member of British boy-band Take That, a singing star who achieved greater fame in a successful solo career.

Actually, the “monkey man” (ape, really) idea was Robbie Williams’ own. And that motion-capture creation works better in this biopic than you expect, helping emphasize Williams’ own feeling of being a misfit in the world, as well as helping us spot the character, the only ape one, in any crowd. Plus it means Jonno Davies, who plays the motion-capture young Robbie Williams, does not actually have to look like him.

Don’t know the name Robbie Williams? It doesn’t matter, if you are a fan or even unfamiliar with the singer’s career, because this biopic is so well-told as a story by director Michael Gracey (THE GREATEST SHOWMAN) that you still can become drawn in to its emotional arc. The tale follows Robbie from childhood to youthful ambition to young adult success, as he is driven to pursue the musical dreams his instilled by his absent father, while haunted by his broken relationship with that charismatic, elusive father. That story arc gives the film more of an Everyman quality, especially for anyone who has had a difficult relationship with a parent, although the film still follows the usual rise-and-fall-and-rise-again pattern of other music biopics.

You would think that making the lead character into a young chimp would be so distracting that viewers would never become fully immersed in the story. In fact, the opposite effect takes hold, once you get used to seeing it, and it gives the film both a kind-of perfect weirdness, plus a touch of humor, that boosts it above ordinary biopic.

Making him a chimp is a good choice works, due to audiences’ prior experiences with all those motion-capture apes in the PLANET OF THE APES movies (and even Gollum in the LORD OF THE RINGS films). In those, we spent hours with motion-capture chimps on screen. Here, Robbie Williams, played by Jonno Davies, is the only chimp on screen (and always a young chimp, who look closer to human), an effect that externalizes his inner feelings of being different, being out of place, from childhood through adulthood.

Because the chimp-human motion capture effect is so familiar, we get comfortable with it sooner than expected. It works better than another music biopic, where Pharrell Williams’ story is told in a Lego animation. Motion-capture allows us to see the play of emotion on the main character’s face, unlike the mainly-frozen Lego faces. Plus Robbie’s motion-capture chimp is the only one we have to deal with rather than a whole world of them.

The motion-capture technology now is so advanced that we lose none of Jonno Davies’ expressive acting as Robbie Williams, and in fact, it most likely is enhanced by the special effects. Davies’ Robbie is always a young chimp (who look more human-like anyway) but he starts out as a younger chimp, with Asmara Feik playing Robbie as a child. As always, the motion-capture work creates more of a human-chimp hybrid than a true chimp, and particularly the green-hazel eyes remain human. That helps emphasize facial expressions and emotions, but director Michael Gracey wisely keep out of any uncomfortable “uncanny valley” territory.

Of course, some will still find the ape-human FX distracting or even irritating. And, in many ways, BETTER MAN is a conventional musician biopic, following the usual rise-and-fall-and-rise-again pattern. But the use of motion-capture effects makes it unique at least in that respect, and the fact that director Gracey handles this material very well, keeping the pacing right and the focus on the personal side of the story, of a man haunted by an elusive parent. The combination of the music biopic with the emotional personal parental story and fine, affecting performances make this drama surprisingly engrossing.

Jonno Davies is outstanding as Robbie Williams, capturing an energy and personal charisma at the various points in his life, despite the special effects filter, and creating a very watchable performance in the musical numbers. Asmara Feik plays Robbie Williams well as a gawking kid, while Jonno Davies takes over as Robbie grows into an ambitious, smart-mouthed street-wise young teen, a teen performer thrust into the boy band fame crush, and then as a surprisingly elegant young man (in chimp form, no small feat), as a star at fame’s peak. Further, the film is aided by a fine supporting cast, including Alison Steadman as young Robbie’s emotional rock Betty, Raechelle Banno as his young love interest Nicole Appleton, and particularly Steve Pemberton as Robbie’s charismatic, manipulative, unreliable father Peter.

The combination of polished visual effects, strong storytelling and a compelling performance, musically and acting, by Jonno Davies and strong supporting cast, all make BETTER MAN a better drama than one expects from a musician biopic, with an interesting visual FX twist.

BETTER MAN opens Friday, Jan. 10, in theaters.

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars