There were many questions swirling around the announcement of a Robbie Williams biopic as a key player in the fall festival season. For many Americans, the question might be, well, who is that? And for those who do know him, the question might be, well, who is that for? While the lives of musicians might have become easy IP for lazy film-makers and indulgent stars, there’s still nothing particularly unique about the life of Williams and certainly no urgent need to tell it at this very moment. And why would it then be costing a reported $110m, attract Paramount as backers and the Greatest Showman director Michael Gracey, landing an in-demand Telluride festival premiere?
Then, as people finally got to see it in the mountains, these questions received an answer no one was expecting because that answer was: monkey. Rather than going down the overly trodden traditional music biopic route, Better Man features a CGI monkey in the lead role, a film then made equal parts Rocketman and Planet of the Apes. From afar, it sounded like an intensely annoying gimmick, perhaps fitting for an entertainer who can often be intensely annoying himself, but the film, which moved from Telluride to Toronto for its second major festival slot, is a surprising winner, a reason to cheer in a subgenre that usually makes us want to boo.
