When I’ve told many people that I’ve recently watched this new movie called “Better Man,” I’ve mostly gotten confused responses. There was a little more recognition when I described it as the “CGI Monkey Movie,” but still, it seems to be relatively unknown in the social circles that I’m in. In my personal opinion, that is a crying shame. “Better Man” was a creative and well-made biopic, with plenty of comedy and heartbreak, as well as a healthy dose of self-awareness and reflection. It follows Robbie Williams, a British singing sensation, and his tumultuous journey through fame, ranging from his days in Take That, a boy band, to his wild solo career.
This may sound like a sad story. It is. When you remember that this all happened to a real person, it added another dimension of pain. I cried during multiple points in the movie. Even despite this, it ends on a good note. Robbie Williams goes into rehab and starts to make amends with the people around him. He sings Frank Sinatra to a sold out crowd in the Royal Albert Hall, a very famous music hall in London. Most importantly, he’s still alive today and has a good life. He’s married and has four kids, and from what I understand, he’s still sober.
Unfortunately, the movie is a box office flop. I spent a couple days in denial of this, so it hurts my soul to type that out. I was genuinely saddened to hear that it was doing so badly, as it appears to get raving reviews from those who watch it, even if they didn’t expect much going into it. As much as I love the film and Robbie Williams’s music, I think I understand why it’s not doing the best overall, at least in the United States of America.
For starters, if you skimmed this article and thought I said Robin Williams, you wouldn’t be the only one who’s made that mistake. Robbie Williams is relatively unknown in the USA. He had two songs that peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 chart: “Angels” at 53 and “Millennium” at 72. Both these songs were released in 1999.
Outside of the USA, his achievements tell a different story. He’s sold over 76 million solo records. In 2006, he got a Guinness World Record for selling 1.6 million concert tickets in a single day. Well, after doing some dutiful research (which consisted of watching Robbie Williams interviews on repeat), I think he wasn’t all that successful in the states because everything about him is painfully British. His songs and speech are full of British slang that most Americans probably wouldn’t resonate with. His humor is also crude, self-deprecating and very straightforward, truly showing the cultural differences between British and American humor. He had an easier time breaking into European and Australian markets, but America was a no-go. The boy band he was in didn’t have the same cultural relevance in America that it did in Britain, so he didn’t really have a platform to jump from on that front.
Secondly, this movie doesn’t have the draw that most biopics do, which is having a famous actor play someone even more famous. In “Better Man”, Robbie Williams is a CGI chimp throughout the entire movie. There are no jokes about him being the only primate in the room. It’s played completely seriously. While this choice does heavily relate to the themes of the movie (the tagline, for the record, is “Fame makes a monkey of us all”), it simply doesn’t appeal to most people. It’s very out there and niche. In comparison, most biopics compensate for the fact that you may not care that much about the person it’s about by casting a popular actor. I mean, even though Bob Dylan is pretty famous in the USA, I’m sure that “A Complete Unknown” has people watching it for the sole purpose of seeing Timothee Chalamet.
Despite the box office bomb, I will still happily recommend “Better Man” to everyone that I know. It was truly an enjoyable movie with amazing visuals and music to accompany the story. I will also take this time to plug Robbie Williams’s music. Personally, I really enjoy his songs, especially “Bodies,” “Come Undone,” and “Me and My Monkey.” And no, “Me and My Monkey” was not in the movie.
P.S: If Robbie Williams ever needs an American college freshman to be in charge of his promotion, there’s a pretty good candidate here at CNU. Spoiler alert, it’s me.
