Robbie Williams, the cheeky lad from Stoke-on-Trent who dominated UK pop charts in the '90s and early 2000s, never quite cracked the American market. So it’s no surprise if U.S. audiences ask, “Who is Robbie Williams?” Enter Better Man , the audacious, oddly moving musical biopic from The Greatest Showman director Michael Gracey, aiming to answer that question—not with a Wikipedia timeline, but with an emotional fever dream of fame, failure, and redemption. The film opens on an unexpected note: Robbie is depicted not as himself, but as an anthropomorphic chimpanzee. This striking metaphor sets the tone for the rest of the film. As voiced by Williams and performed through motion capture by Jonno Davies, this simian version of Robbie doesn’t merely serve as a visual gag. It’s a profound symbol of his own self-perception—a “performing monkey” trapped in the glare of the spotlight, caught between spectacle and sincerity. Gracey’s film embraces this surrealism wholeheartedly. There’s...