Better Man introduces us, via Williams’s signature tune Let Me Entertain You, to a born performer (“I came out of the womb with jazz hands – which was very painful for my mum,” jokes Williams’s narrative voiceover). There’s evidently something different about young Robert, but the CGI is so beguilingly expressive, it also feels entirely plausible that this wide-eyed boy chimp is immersed in a human world: crooning along to Sinatra with his dad (Steve Pemberton), listening to stories from his grandma (a wonderfully cuddly Alison Steadman). Williams’s drive for stardom is evident, but so are his deep-rooted self-doubts, and fear of being a “nobody”.
The turn of the 1990s brings a key change; at 16, Williams was the youngest member of Take That: a Manchester pop quintet fashioned by manager Nigel Martin-Smith after the massive success of Stateside heartthrobs New Kids On The Block. Take That were not an overnight smash; the film depicts their chaotic inception (with Williams’s voiceover noting that each member made £180 each in the first 18 months) – but the band grafted their way to becoming a genuine phenomenon, dominating the charts and mass teenage dreams, with Williams’s loveably cheeky persona fronting their breakthrough hits.
Better Man serves choreographed set-pieces that blend British pop culture detail and Busby Berkeley-style extravaganza; a euphoric group performance of Williams’s track Rock DJ captures the way that pop stardom can feel superhuman. We’re swiftly reminded of its precariousness, though, via Williams’s dizzying descents into self-destruction and depression, and his departure from Take That. Each time he performs onstage, he sees demon doppelgangers glowering back at him within the crowds – a terror that intensifies, even as he establishes a record-breaking solo career.
Williams has always been candid about his flaws and battles with addiction and excess – it’s as though he can’t stop picking at his scars, via song lyrics, soundbites or documentaries, including the tour film Nobody Someday (2002) and a Netflix series (2023), as well as several books by his official biographer, Chris Heath. Yet there is something especially visceral about Better Man’s dramatisation; Williams’s simian form heightens the florid weirdness of his music industry experiences – and also takes the brutal edge off some of the bleakest points in his story. The film never takes on a glib “jukebox musical” approach, where hit tunes are shoehorned into the narrative; instead, Better Man’s soundtrack re-contextualises several of Robbie’s biggest songs (Feel, sung by his childhood self; Come Undone; She’s The One, reimagined as a duet as he falls in love with fellow pop star Nicole Appleton), in a way that feels revelatory. Robbie has always been an extravagant showman, but a sense of intimacy – whether it’s his yearning for affection and acceptance, or his spiky self-critique – seems surprisingly amplified here.
