Better Man review – Robbie Williams becomes CGI chimp in surreal biopic

Robbie Williams – only he is a chimp! This is a pretty trad music biopic, coming with the accepted U-shaped narrative arc of humble beginnings, big break, superstardom, drugs, drink, shallow sex, dark-night-of-the-soul slump and redemptive comeback, here topped off with an unendurably protracted performance of My Way at the Royal Albert Hall in London. But the whole thing is given a cheeky high-concept twist by portraying the singer as an ape – a shrieking, scowling, capering CGI chimp – while all around are humans. Actor Jonno Davies plays the part in motion capture and Williams himself supplies the voiceover.

The idea supposedly comes from Williams’s fear that he is immature and unevolved, stranded emotionally for ever at the age he became famous: 15. And this chimp figure runs counter to his 2001 song Better Man, with its poignant, maybe Darwinian yearning for improvement: “As my soul heals the shame/I will grow through this pain/Lord, I’m doing all I can/To be a better man.”

But, of course, it is an outrageous existential humblebrag – as a chimp, Robbie is superior to the boring humanoids: funnier, crazier, braver and more charismatic. Steve Pemberton plays Robbie’s unreliable old dad, Peter, a heartbreakingly unsuccessful Sinatra-adjacent lounge singer who broke Robbie’s heart by abandoning his family but inspired Robbie with a complicated Oedipal need to prove himself, imitate him, gain his attention and surpass him. Alison Steadman plays his adored nan, who always believed in him. Jake Simmance is Gary Barlow, whose songwriting professionalism earns Robbie’s grudging respect.

We see young chimpy Robbie audition for hatchet-faced promoter Nigel Martin-Smith (Damon Herriman) to join Take That – and the screenplay from Simon Gleeson, Oliver Cole and Michael Gracey gives Williams’s voiceover some carefully droll material about the enduring need to be quite polite about Martin-Smith for legal reasons. As Martin-Smith, Herriman has the funniest line; over dinner, he tells the fresh-faced band to look around the table. “In five years’ time we’ll all hate each other – but we’ll be rich!”

That is not quite what happens. Robbie’s substance-abusing antics get him expelled from the band; and he makes a bid for solo stardom with the help of his new girlfriend, Nicole Appleton (Raechelle Banno), while eaten up with jealousy for her band All Saints and their No 1 single. Songwriter Guy Chambers (Tom Budge) unlocks Robbie’s inner talent – and here again there is some interesting, legally constrained joking about Robbie and Guy going on beach holidays together. Robbie is fascinated and woundedly envious of Oasis’s colossal success and yearns for a massive Knebworth show of his own – and for his dad to love him.

It is all watchably performed, but the chimp idea is not explored any further than simply making Robbie look like a chimp. We are not leading up to any Statue of Liberty on the beach moment; he just does what he would do anyway. As you gradually get used to him resembling a chimp, the ironising and surreal effect wears off, and the chimp face looks weirdly less compelling than Robbie’s vivid face, seen in pictures over the closing credits. The film is interestingly candid about the toxic, driving force of envy behind a musical career – something many music biopics omit – but in the end, however initially startling and amusing, Robbie-as-chimp feels like a distraction from his all-too-human unhappiness and talent.

• Better Man is in UK and Irish cinemas from 26 December.