For American audiences, at least movie musicals are a better man It’s a pretty hard sell. This is a strange sounding project. A music biopic in which the lead character is replaced by a CG chimpanzee, it’s built around the career of an international superstar and former boy band member who never had success in the United States. Americans don’t share the rest of the world’s fascination with pop singer Robbie Williams, despite his 14 chart-topping albums, regular appearances in British tabloids and cheeky, viral-friendly music videos. (Note: That video has 107 million views, which doesn’t even come close to his most-watched hit, ‘Angels.’) So the idea of a biopic makes the “monkey protagonist” gimmick more interesting.
However, although the film is based on Williams’ life, it is still better thought of as a fantasy feature. Director Michael Gracie previously made PT Barnum’s career a rousing and wildly popular musical film. the greatest showmanIt glosses over or revises much of the reality of Barnum’s life and work. while a better man It gets us closer to the truth about Williams’ history, especially when it comes to music, which deals with images and emotions rather than facts. Just as Gracey replaces Williams with an ape for various reasons (more on that later), he fictionalizes and expands the story of his subject. But more importantly, he tells the story through fantasy sequences. It’s so bold, expressive, and visually stunning that its effect dominates the film.
Image: Paramount Pictures/Everett Collection
Actor Jonno Davies played Williams throughout the film for motion capture purposes as he grew up from a tense working-class family to a swaggering, attention-seeking display. He first achieved national fame as a teenager when producer Nigel Martin-Smith (Damon Herriman) selected him to join the boy band Take That, which achieved enormous success. (Time later described the fandom around the band as “a ’90s version of Beatlemania.”)
Common behind-the-scenes dramas include depression, substance abuse, arrogance and alienation, falling out, recovery and rebirth. But the basic bits aren’t as important as the way Gracie portrays them. Whether through bravura sequences in which Williams and his colleagues travel through a rotating and mutating fantasy version of London’s Regent Street, or with a horde of zombie-like paparazzi attacking Williams underwater, right in the set pieces. aquamanTrench fighting.
a better man Rather than a cold reconstruction of events, it is openly structured around Williams’ emotional experiences of his life. Perhaps he’s never actually fought a 110,000 version of himself in a brutal, over-the-top battle royale set to “Let Me Entertain You.” If nothing else, timeline interrogations may stand out throughout Williams’ career as to how music has been used to express emotional moments from entirely different parts of his history. But the full-blown fantasy approach allows Gracey to escape the usual unsettling questions about fidelity to truth in biopics. When your protagonist is an ape operating in a human world, who can miss the fact that the approach is closer to images and sensations than factual accuracy?
Robbie Williams’ central conceit of being an ape-man among humans not only adds to Gracie’s visual appeal, but also serves as a powerful metaphor. He and Williams gave different reasons for their approach. In the film itself, Williams says that he has always seen himself as “a little less evolved” than other people. In other interviews, Gracey has talked about wanting to distance herself from reality so that audiences can better accept the musical’s unreality, or simply needing a gimmick to avoid making another identical biopic.
And ahead of the film’s release, Williams and Gracey released a video clip giving a completely different reason. Gracey said she decided to do so after being inspired by Williams complaining about being “dragged on stage to perform like a monkey.” Ideas are literal and tangible.
However, excluding such justification, what is presented is a better manThe theme of Gracie as a literal animal, a creature different from all those around her, serves as a theme for Williams’ sense of alienation and separateness. Whether the obstacle is his endless thirst for attention, the way he struggles with drugs and alcohol while his boy band mates seem physically and emotionally healthier, the way his fame alienates him from his family and former friends, or the way he constantly craves it. Seeking the approval of his father, who was busy chasing his own fame, Williams set himself apart from the world. Structuring the film around his most self-deprecating, instinct-based self-image allows the point to be made in every scene without the need for explanation.
And there is also a destructive, animalistic aspect to the monkey image. Wētā FX, the effects house behind the Planet of the Apes films, provided Williams with an expressive, believable chimpanzee face and detailed chimpanzee pelts, but kept his body language and physical form largely human-like. Still, there’s an intense sense of danger in Williams’ moments on screen when he’s angry or fearful, such as pounding his chest or baring his fangs. At that moment, he feels much more dangerous to those around him, and much less in control than any human character.
Beyond all that, the ambitiously gritty musical sequences stand out. a better man A spectacle film that can share audiences with multiplexes. wicked. It seems designed more for fans of immersive Wētā-centric fantasy worlds like Planet of the Apes or The Lord of the Rings films than it is aimed at fans of pop music history or even Williams himself. (Netflix offers a four-part documentary on Williams’ life and career for those looking for a more fact-based approach.) At the end, viewers may want to know more about Williams as a performer and character, or find out more about his work. You’ll want to dig deeper. record.
however a better man The experience is more akin to watching a great Bollywood musical or a spectacular performance by Baz Luhrmann. Moulin Rouge! Rather than watching an episode behind the music. Most musicals express emotions through songs. This goes one step further and transforms emotion into a bold central gimmick. Experimental and explosive. Even for those not invested in Williams’ work or with no prior knowledge of his career, it’s worth it just to see how Gracey fills the screen with energy and vitality with a captivating staging designed to overwhelm the audience’s senses and get them singing. There is. .
a better man I’m at the theater now.
