Though he’s not as well-known stateside as he is overseas, Robbie Williams is a one-of-a-kind pop star throwback who, like many cut from similar cloth, came up through a boy band and embarked on a successful solo career. The reason he’s a throwback is that he’s spectacularly weird — the dude has visited Skinwalker Ranch, the bizarre place in Utah that’s home to a billion paranormal phenomena, and has seen a UFO — but he’s deliriously charming as well.
It’s fitting, then, that he’s teamed up with director Michael Gracey (The Greatest Showman) for a once-of-a-kind biopic entitled Better Man, which has one hell of a conceit: Williams is played by a mo-capped chimpanzee. Paramount dropped a trailer for the movie earlier on Thursday, and we can only say one thing: man, what a choice that is.
Peep it:
Here’s a really great write-up from this year’s TIFF program:
‘”Let me entertain you!’ Robbie Williams famously sang. From boy band euphoria to solo stadium tours, the UK pop star has lived large, loud, and right on the edge. No mere music biopic could do his highs and lows justice. And so Michael Gracey hit on an audacious, dazzling approach. Gather round and witness the life of Robbie Williams unfold in a rather unorthodox way, to say the least.
Gracey draws on his substantial background in visual effects and signature images for pop videos, weaving those skills through propulsive storytelling. All of this elevated his blockbuster debut, ‘The Greatest Showman;’ here it results in a truly spectacular film. It helps that Williams is one of the most kinetic and deeply self-aware pop stars on the planet.
‘Better Man’ begins with young Williams watching his father’s dreams of music stardom swirl around like dust in their cramped sitting room. He absorbs his father’s ambitions — and his crippling self-doubt — but the boy has talent.
Before long he has joined teen idols Take That and they stomp up the charts in a series of showstopping musical numbers. But money and fame bring more doubt, and Williams — played as an adult by actor Jonno Davies — learns the corrosive art of self-sabotage.
With its vibrant music, state-of-the-art visuals, and brilliant “casting” conceit, there may be no movie experience more singular, disarming, and downright entertaining this year than ‘Better Man.’ And, as a portrait of a tortured, talented star, it’s surprisingly moving.”
Better Man arrives in select theaters on Christmas Day before expanding nationwide on January 17. What a wild and wacky world we live in, folks.