‘Better Man’: Toronto Review

Dir: Michael Gracey. Australia. 2024. 134mins 

Most music biopics have fun the genius or groundbreaking artistry of their topic. What’s refreshing about Higher Man, a tribute to Robbie Williams, is that it harbours no illusions about what drove the UK pop celebrity. As he explains on this very entertaining, surprisingly transferring movie, all he needed was to be well-known, and that candour creates a recent manner of viewing each Williams and the biopic format, stripping away the style’s pretensions to deal with the neediness that compels many performers. However the image’s audacity doesn’t finish there, with director Michael Gracey casting Jonno Davies to play Williams — after which rendering him as a monkey by means of particular results.

Very entertaining, surprisingly transferring 

Premiering in Telluride and Toronto, Higher Man can be launched within the UK and US round Christmas. The British singer, who turned 50 earlier this 12 months, was at all times extra of a sensation in Europe than North America – though Netflix’s four-part 2023 documentary could have helped to boost his profile. However even these unfamiliar with Williams’ hits as a solo artist or, earlier, with the Nineteen Nineties boy band Take That ought to nonetheless get pleasure from Higher Man’s energetic construction and energetic musical numbers courtesy of Gracey, who beforehand directed The Best Showman — a moniker that may be equally acceptable for Williams himself.

Specializing in Williams’ life previous to 2001, the movie presents him as a CGI monkey (performed by Davies). The concept got here to Gracey from conversations he had with Williams, who ceaselessly commented that he has felt like a performing monkey — a little bit of hyperbole the director takes actually, visually illustrating how the younger man feels ugly and peculiar compared to these round him. However inspired by his entertainer father Peter (Steve Pemberton), who deserted the household when Williams was a boy, he pushes himself towards stardom, efficiently auditioning for Take That and changing into a pin-up on the age of 15. After a number of years, with medication and alcohol consuming him, Williams is lower free from the group, pressured to reinvent himself as an grownup singer.

Early on, somebody complains that the younger Williams is a “cheeky little bastard”, however Gracey recognises that that is the singer’s nice power. An admirer of Frank Sinatra, who his father additionally adored, Williams longs to be the centre of consideration, each grasp entertainer and irrepressible scamp. The movie spends virtually no time digging into Williams’ inventive course of or creative ambitions — the impish singer doesn’t assume in such lofty phrases. Slightly, he needs No. 1 information and obscene wealth, and Higher Man refuses to evaluate him for what others would possibly resolve are shallow causes to get into music. If something, Gracey argues that being true to 1’s personal self is an important factor any artist can do.

Davies’ cocky, charismatic efficiency will get round the issue that many biopics have, which is the temptation to make sure that the actor carefully resembles the topic. The spectacular CGI work is initially jarring, however quickly it turns into a poignant technique of experiencing Williams’ rise, fall and redemption. The character’s self-loathing is etched on his digital face — regardless of how profitable Williams will get, all we (and he) see is that this misfit creature.

In different regards, although, Higher Man comprises loads of style cliches. Williams’ descent into medication is predictably gruelling, and his mundane issues with romantic constancy are hardly distinctive. However inside a standard framework, Gracey celebrates his topic’s distinctive ability at delivering an ineffable wow issue.  Most forcefully, that comes throughout within the musical set items, which flip the singer’s tunes into theatrical extravaganzas. Take That’s profession takeoff is scored to ’Rock DJ’ — who cares if that was a Williams solo hit lengthy after he left the band? — as a whole metropolis turns into a backdrop for a show-stopping dance quantity. As on The Best Showman, the director goes for the emotional jugular in these sequences, emphasising what’s most joyous or transferring about tunes like ‘Angels’ after which discovering expressive digicam actions to match. 

None of those songs are notably deep however, Higher Man suggests, that doesn’t imply they’re shallow. That beneficiant, open-minded perspective infuses the complete movie, which is snarky but additionally emotional, considerate with out being ponderous. ’Let Me Entertain You’ goes the title of one other Williams basic — Higher Man by no means shortchanges that seductive sentiment, or forgets the insecure artist at its coronary heart.