Alex Casey reviews the first and possibly last ever musical biopic to star a CGI ape. 

Sometime over the fuzzy holiday break, I watched a Subway Take on Instagram which stuck with me. “Musician biopics should be illegal,” opined guest Charlene Kaye. “I’m so sick of the trope of the trauma porn-y Oscar bait-y biopic that depicts musicians as these tortured geniuses.” She argued that all musician biopics follow the same four beats: I’ve come from nothing, now I’m famous, now I’m destroyed by drugs, now I’m going to die on the toilet. 

Salient points for sure, but Kaye clearly hadn’t considered this: what if chimp instead? 

It’s a pretty weird question that absolutely nobody asked, but Better Man has answered all the same. Telling the story of Robbie Williams by way of simian simulacrum, the biopic shakes off the cliches of its predecessors by throwing a cat among the pigeons, aka a big old chimp in a denim vest among Take That. “I don’t see myself how others see me,” Williams says in voiceover over his chimp likeness. “To be honest, I’ve always been a little less… evolved.” 

This isn’t the first buzzy swing in a biopic – just last year Pharrell Williams rendered his life story via Lego in Piece by Piece, and Vera Drew took her journey of self-acceptance into Gotham in The People’s Joker. Hell, it looks like they’ve even roped in a meerkat with a moustache to play Bob Dylan. But there’s something especially effective about choosing a chimp – dangerous and violent one moment, vulnerable and “just like us” the next. 

Rendered by our own Wētā FX (likely why all the comments below the trailer are making the exact same Planet of the Apes joke), the fact you are watching a CGI chimp barely registers once Williams’ remarkable story starts to unfurl. I had definitely forgotten how absurd it was by the time I was sobbing into my sweet and salty popcorn as a young forlorn (chimp) Williams sang ‘Feel’ on the bleak streets of Stoke-on-Trent because his (human) father left him.

Also yes, surprise, Better Man is a jukebox musical. Directed by Matthew Gracey, best known for The Greatest Showman, the film’s musical numbers are spectacularly deployed, be it thousands of lads storming the streets of London to ‘Rock DJ’ when Take That get famous (a Christopher Nolan-style timeline rip not to be dwelled upon), or the soaring waltz to ‘She’s the One’ when (chimp) Williams first meets (human) love interest Nicole Appleton.

While Jonno Davies does a remarkable job as the Serkis to Williams’ Gollum, there are also some excellent human performances. Raechelle Banno as All Saints star Appleton probably deserves her own movie given the quiet hell she went through (record company forcing her to have an abortion, chimp smashing up her crockery), and Taskmaster favourite Steve Pemberton casts a perfectly tragic figure as Robbie’s poor old washed-up showman father.

(To be honest, about the only humans in the movie that jarred for me was the poor chaps roped into play the most costumey versions of Gallaghers ever committed to the silver screen. Liam’s wig looked closer to Brett McKenzie’s hairmet than actual human hair.)

But I must return once more to the deeply affecting chimp, whose surreal presence allows the film to enter vivid, devastating and terrifying sequences that simply wouldn’t work if the film had taken the usual route (Barry Keoghan in temporary tats). Instead, depression looks like hundreds of past selves threatening to slit your throat, fame looks like being drowned by ghoulish sirens, and confronting your demons looks exactly like a Game of Thrones battle.

Just like Williams’ mawkish music, Better Man wears its chimp heart on its chimp sleeve, and not everyone will be a fan. But this chimp behind a keyboard loved it and cried more times than they are willing to admit in a public forum. It is audacious and weird, sinking its teeth deep into mental illness, ambition, loss and addiction, while also delivering some of the most memorable pop hits of the early 2000s, while also giving… Cocaine Chimp.

I’m just sad the film ends before Williams gets really into aliens, but maybe they’re saving that for the sequel. 

Better Man is in cinemas now.