What if Caeser from the Apes trilogy was into musicals and turned into the Greatest Showman!
That sentence sounds like the ramblings of someone who stayed up too late after watching three movies back to back. Yet somehow it is also the most accurate way to describe Michael Gracey’s Better Man. A Robbie Williams biopic where the singer is portrayed entirely as a computer generated monkey should not work. On paper it sounds like a studio executive lost a bet.
My initial reaction: A Robbie Williams biopic where he's
played by a CGI monkey!?
SIGN.ME.UP!
That initial curiosity quickly turns into something else entirely once the film begins. Because Gracey does not treat the concept like a gimmick. He leans into it with full commitment and somehow builds one of the most inventive musical biopics in recent memory.
Definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but I for one absolutely loved it!
The film traces Robbie Williams from childhood through his rise as the youngest member of the wildly successful boy band Take That and eventually into his explosive solo career. That arc may sound familiar because the music biopic formula has become painfully predictable over the years. Childhood insecurity. Sudden fame. Self destruction. Redemption.
But Better Man refuses to tell that story in a conventional way.
Instead Gracey presents Williams as he apparently sees himself. Not a glamorous pop idol. Not a heroic rock star. But a performing monkey chasing applause and validation from an audience that can never fully fill the emotional void inside him.
And yes, you really do get used to it.
The first few minutes feel strange. A monkey walks around British streets. A monkey performs on stage. A monkey parties with famous musicians. Then something interesting happens. You stop noticing the fur. The character becomes Robbie. The emotions start to land.
And that is when the film begins to work its strange magic.
It's done in such a fuckin bonkers and crazy way! A lot of folks around me disliked it, but like I said, I'm absolutely in love with it!
Michael Gracey already proved with The Greatest Showman that he understands how to stage musical numbers with explosive energy. Here he pushes that style even further. The songs are not just performances. They become large visual spectacles that blur the line between reality and imagination.
Insane editing as well!
Scenes move with a rhythm that feels almost musical in itself. Gracey constantly shifts perspective and scale. A quiet emotional moment can suddenly explode into a full musical sequence that transforms a street or concert hall into a dreamlike stage.
Especially the way they have shot and featured the songs reminded me so much of the filmmaker's previous film, The Greatest Showman.
The choreography, the camera movement, the elaborate production design all work together to create sequences that feel electric. At times the film almost resembles a fever dream about fame and self destruction.
And the monkey in the center of it all somehow becomes the emotional anchor.
I have to say props to the way his character is shown and shot, it's just bonkers!
The visual effects work here deserves enormous credit. The character never feels like a cartoon dropped into live action. Instead the performance capture allows subtle expressions to come through. Anger, insecurity, arrogance, regret. All of it registers in ways that make the character surprisingly human.
Which is of course the point.
Robbie Williams narrates the film with a self awareness that cuts through the usual heroic framing of music biopics. He openly acknowledges his own flaws, his ego, and the ways fame amplified the worst parts of his personality. The film rarely paints him as a victim. Instead it treats him as a complicated figure who often sabotaged himself.
That honesty gives the story an emotional core that many musical biopics lack.
The movie also explores Williams’ complicated relationship with his father, which becomes one of the most powerful emotional threads running through the film. Beneath the spectacle and the music lies a surprisingly intimate story about a son chasing the approval of a parent who always seemed just out of reach.
This shit is so electric. It was legitimately magical walking out and everyone agreeing we were shocked by how much we loved it.
That reaction feels almost inevitable because the movie takes such an outrageous creative swing. The industry has been drowning in safe, sanitized celebrity biographies. Better Man goes in the opposite direction. It embraces weirdness, vulnerability, and visual experimentation.
It's extremely ballsy for a studio to try and do a biopic this way.
Not everything works perfectly. The narrative does follow some familiar beats of the genre, and the middle section occasionally drifts into repetition as Williams spirals deeper into excess and self doubt. But even when the structure feels familiar, the presentation keeps things lively.
The musical numbers remain vibrant and inventive, and the film never loses sight of its central metaphor about fame turning artists into performers trapped in their own circus.
By the time the story reaches its emotional resolution, the monkey imagery begins to feel strangely poignant rather than absurd.
Michael Gracey proves here that he is not interested in playing things safe. His approach to musical storytelling is bold, maximalist, and deeply theatrical. Some viewers will undoubtedly bounce off the concept immediately.
But for those willing to embrace the madness, the film becomes something rare in modern studio filmmaking. A big swing that actually connects.
Keep em' coming!
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