Better Man review: Forget Wicked, this is the best movie musical of the year

It sounds like a ridiculous idea, and for the first however many minutes of the film, you may well find yourself wondering what on earth you’ve gotten yourself into. But against all odds, Better Man eventually reaches a point where you stop thinking there’s anything unusual going on at all. Somehow, it just works.

It wouldn’t be completely true to say that you forget he’s a chimp – he’s up there in every frame, after all – but you certainly stop seeing it as a pointless, attention-seeking gimmick: the rationale that he’s shown this way due to being a “cheeky monkey” and “performing monkey” begins to make perfect sense, and you find yourself getting swept up in the sheer emotion of watching Robbie’s story unfold across the extreme highs and disastrous lows.

It helps that the film is more from the Rocketman school of recent music biopics than the Bohemian Rhapsody one. In other words, the plethora of hits sprinkled generously throughout the runtime are worked into the narrative via dynamically staged musical numbers, rather than simply performed on stage and in the studio. This gives the film a more heightened, less realistic feel that plays into its quirky conceit and provides all manner of memorable moments.

It’s at its best during the inspired stretches where it truly leans into its inherent absurdity. This is most notable during Robbie’s performance of Let Me Entertain You at Knebworth, which transforms into something altogether more surprising that wouldn’t be out of place in a Planet of the Apes movie.

But there are other great musical moments, too, including a spirited Regent Street-set performance of Rock DJ, an inventively choreographed version of She’s the One and an intensely moving rendition of Angels.

And there’s some meaty subject matter in here too. On the one hand, this is no hagiography, and the film doesn’t shy away from showing Robbie at his worst, especially when focusing on a key moment from his relationship with Nicole Appleton (Raechelle Banno).

But the film is also deeply empathetic about the undue pressures placed on those who get super famous super young, and the lack of resources on hand to insulate people from the dark side of that mega-fame.

It’s a theme which feels just as prescient as ever when considering both the tragedy surrounding the death of Liam Payne and the recent BBC Two documentary Boybands Forever, the airing of which prompted Robbie himself to write an open letter to former Take That manager Nigel Martin-Smith.

Better Man is by no means a perfect film. The narration provided by Robbie himself can be a little on-the-nose, and there are times where it inevitably slides into the usual naff pitfalls and clichés of any musician biopic, even if it’s far easier to forgive them when such an ambitious decision has been taken at the conception stage.

But what it is, is an honest, entertaining and endlessly endearing spectacle that seems certain to play well with a crowd. And if you think the idea of getting teary at Steve Pemberton and a monkey performing a Frank Sinatra staple sounds completely outlandish, then think again. Forget Wicked, this is the movie musical of 2024.

Better Man is released in UK cinemas on Boxing Day.

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