Robbie Williams is a CGI monkey, and that’s not the weird part

‘Better Man’ is inadvertently honest about the ephemerality of fame

Taken on its own, “Better Man” is a traditional musical biopic about the rise of a cheeky pop icon adored by millions, chasing fame at all costs, always hungry for attention and never satisfied. It has flashes of energy and poignancy, but it does feel like British pop star Robbie Williams watched “Rocketman” and thought, “I want one of those!”

But what makes it truly interesting to me isn’t necessarily what’s happening on screen. While Williams was huge in Britain and elsewhere in the world in the ‘90s and ‘00s, he never broke through in the United States despite repeated attempts. So there’s a weird disconnect in seeing this swaggering celebrity up on the big screen bemoan the perils of fame, when most of the people in an American movie theater don’t even know who he is. You think fame is fleeting, Robbie? Mate, you don’t know the half of it.

The other weird thing, which you know if you’ve seen the trailer, is that Williams in the film is presented as a CGI monkey. Everyone else in the film sees him as human – when his granny (Allison Steadman) coos “I wouldn’t change a hair on your head,” you wonder how she feels about the hair covering the rest of his body. The idea is that we’re seeing Williams as he seems himself – a trained chimp, living for the adulation of the crowd.

Once you get used to the admittedly impressive visual effects, “Better Man” follows the traditional rags-to-riches arc beat for beat. Robbie grows up listening not to rock music but to the crooners like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin that his father (Steve Pemberton), a small-time pub entertainer, obsessed over. When his dad abandons the family to pursue his shabby dreams, Robbie is determined to follow suit and win his approval.

He enlists as a teenager in the ‘90s boy band Take That, but despite the band’s success, Williams’ thirst for the limelight clashes with the heavy hand of the group’s Svengali-like producer (Damon Herriman). Kicked out of the group for his drug and alcohol addictions, and for generally being irritating to be around, Williams rebounds with massive success as a solo artist, including playing for a gobsmacking 125,000 people at Knebworth.

But it’s never enough, and Williams doesn’t seem to enjoy any of it. Musical biopics like this usually contrast the ecstasy of performing onstage with the agony of life offstage, but there’s little of that joy here. I don’t think there’s one positive fan interaction depicted in the entire film – in one surreal scene, his fans are depicted as a mass of wriggling piranha, each taking a little bite out of his flesh. The Knebworth performance ends in a post-apocalyptic dream sequence where the crowd turns into angry younger versions of Williams that he does battle with.

Michael Gracey depicts Williams’ life with all the restraint and subtlety that you would expect from the director of “The Greatest Showman.” Although all the shiny artifice and coked-up mania of the filmmaking style may be the perfect way to illustrate life inside the bubble of fame. “Rock DJ” becomes a gloriously silly Take That music video (it’s a Williams solo song, but why quibble), with the lads cavorting through the streets and shops of London, and his cover of World Party’s “She’s The One” scores his first meeting with partner Nicole Appleton (Raechelle Banno) on a luxury yacht. It feels completely unreal, but still works.

Williams’ downward spiral in the second half off “Better Man” turns the movie into a bit of a slog, a hypercaffeinated parade of excess. But it’s telling that in the redemptive turn that we expect in the climax, Williams may find gratitude and sobriety, but he never finds humility. The end finds him performing for yet another crowd – this time singing Sinatra for an adoring throng in a tony concert hall.

For humility, he might want to hang outside an American movie theater after a screening and listen to audience members ask, “Was he a real person or not?”

“Better Man” opens Friday in theaters. In Madison, it will play at Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, AMC Fitchburg 18 and Flix Brewhouse Madison.