The film Better Man, Directed by Michael Gracey is one of the most creative takes on a biopic to come out in recent years. This movie follows the life story of Robbie Williams, an English singer-songwriter, and his journey to fame. This type of movie is something we have seen countless times, except this has one major difference from all other biopics, Robbie is not a human in this movie, instead, his character is replaced with a CGI chimpanzee. And while it holds no significance to the plot whatsoever, the stylistic choice to replace the lead of the film with an ape heavily works in the movie’s favor. 

The movie’s plot follows a lot of the similar beats you can expect from a biopic. The protagonist wants to be famous; the protagonist becomes famous; the protagonist develops a drug problem; the protagonist starts to hate fame. While this is a repetitive formula, it’s all based on truth and because of that, this movie still stays fresh and carries a lot of good emotional weight. The majority of what makes this movie great is Robbie’s relationship with his Grandma and the relatability and love it brings. This movie covers a lot of ground for a 2 hour run time and somehow manages to pace really well. I was surprised by how well it managed to balance the multiple-character relationships with the relatively quick pace it kept.

You can’t have a biopic about a musician without a few musical numbers, but what this movie does with it is what is really interesting to me. In contrast to other recent musician biopics like Elvis or A Complete Unknown, this movie had a lot more of a musical feel to it. When you watch a movie like A Complete Unknown, all of the musical performances are live actual performances within the context of the movie. You’re not watching a scene with crazy visuals or choreography, you’re watching Timothee Chalamet playing a guitar and singing into a mic. However, Better Man is fully a musical. Almost all of the musical scenes in this movie are used to continue to tell the story through visuals, lyrics, or choreography; and the way it’s done was really impressive. There are at least four specific musical sequences that really stood out to me for their ability to be both narrative tools and visually appealing, as well as just a cool song. We’ve seen Gracey’s skill in directing scenes like this in his previous film The Greatest Showman, but I can say confidently they have only improved especially with the use of visual effects to enhance them.

Speaking of visual effects, this movie had an excellent use of them throughout the film. They did a really good job of seamlessly blending the chimp version of Robbie into the human world, and it was so visually appealing to watch. On top of that, there was a lot of metaphorical imagery, and transitions that used visual effects to smooth it over in a way that really benefited this story overall. Props to the character design artists in this film especially for being able to achieve Robbie’s real-life likeness through the chimp as he went through the various stages of his life. 

Overall, I would rate this film a 4 out of 5. I really enjoyed it and will definitely watch it again in the future. As someone who knew nothing about Robbie Williams going in, I can safely say that after this movie, I’m a fan. Additionally, I’m glad that we are seeing more biopics that break the rules of what we know, with Pharell’s being told solely through Lego animation and now this film. It’s really exciting to be in an era where movies and storytellers are pushing new creative boundaries. I think this movie nailed it, and I can’t wait to see what comes next from Michael Gracey.