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"Better Man" is an astonishing movie about the internationally renowned pop star Robbie Williams. You may not be familiar with this hyper-famous Englishman, because, to what I think we can assume to be his enduring puzzlement, he is famously un-famous in one crucial anglophone music market -- the United States. And so releasing a $110-million musical biopic about him in a country long indifferent to his talents seems an utterly mad undertaking. Especially since the star of the picture -- the one playing Williams -- is, unapologetically, a monkey.

OK, a chimpanzee, a motion-capture CGI confection from the workshops of New Zealand's Weta FX (the company that started out creating Orcs and Balrogs for the "Lord of the Rings" movies). The very idea of doing this -- of having a simian figure depict a recognizable human celebrity, with none of the other characters in the film ever commenting on the fact -- is deeply odd. And yet, the monkey -- whom we see kicking up his heels on Regent Street in one elaborate dance number, knockin' 'em dead at a Knebworth pop festival, and snorting coke with Liam Gallagher (the less likeable of the Oasis brothers) -- is so painstakingly deployed, so deeply believable as a character, that we quickly surrender to the bizarre gimmick and willingly enter into the world of monkey-Robbie's showbiz joys and sorrows. (Actor Jonno Davies is the man whose motions have been captured for this performance.)

In the grand tradition of classic Hollywood musicals, the movie is unabashedly sentimental and even weepy at some points. There's a grim vibe to Robbie's childhood in the north of England, where he lives with his mum and dad. His father, Peter (Steve Pemberton), whose dream of becoming an entertainer has been blocked by an almost total lack of talent, tells his son, "You're either born with it, or you're a nobody." "I don't want to be a nobody," little Robbie says.

Then, at the dawn of the 1990s, aged 15, Williams auditions for and is hired by a boy band called Take That, whose manager, Nigel (Damon Herriman), pegs Robbie as a skilled songwriter. In their twinky stage outfits, the group is put out on the gay-disco circuit to perform. After much slogging around the club scene, they land a recording contract and start scoring hits. "In five years, we're all going to hate each other," Nigel tells them. "But we'll be rich."

The movie hits its stride when Robbie quits Take That in 1995 to strike out on his own. While long-ago muso biopics like the 1946 "Night and Day" (the Cole Porter story) were careful to obscure any unseemly facts about their subjects, "Better Man," which is based entirely on Williams' own recollections, plows right into his various problems. He struggles with clinical depression (and sometimes feels like showbiz has turned him into a performing monkey), and he finds himself, at the age of 21, a "full-blown alcoholic" with "a raging cocaine habit." When his girlfriend, Nicole Appleton, of the girl group All Saints, becomes pregnant and then gets an abortion, Robbie is dazed and unhelpful. (Nicole later married Liam Gallagher, whom at one point we've heard berating Robbie as a "fuckin' knob head.")

What saves the movie from sinking too deep into the incipient schmaltz of its story is its often spectacular production design and wildly energetic dance numbers -- especially the Regent Street sequence, fueled by Williams' chart-topping 2000 single "Rock DJ," in which a herd of dancers streak in and out of stores, up on top of buses, then back down to the sidewalk to proceed on pogo sticks. This level of old-school musical pizzaz hasn't been seen since Steven Spielberg's 2021 remake of "West Side Story."

The movie's Australian director, Michael Gracey (who directed Hugh Jackman in "The Greatest Showman"), deserves all kinds of props for coming up with this movie's ambitious concept, and for somehow making it work. But the film carries some heavy baggage, from the vintage Old Hollywood touches and the locally obscure superstar at its center. (If you're not already a fan of Williams' music -- or musicals in general -- the picture might require some major uphill effort to sit through.) The movie has already flatlined in this country, and in several European countries where Williams - who's sold some 75 million albums over the course of a 30-year solo career - is much better known. But it's a one-of-a-kind film, and while it'll soon be gone from theaters, an audience may one day find it.

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To find out more about Kurt Loder and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.

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