Story Movie
Ever since he was a kid, Robbie Williams has felt a little wild. In an effort to show his father what he's worth, Robbie decides to take a risk and embark on a music career. However, neither the luxurious life of a millionaire nor the stadiums of fans change the way he sees himself.
Review 4K Movie
Music biopics are a subtle thing. Almost everyone (especially fans) knows what the star looks like and what the voice of the performer sounds like. You can go straight ahead, using the original soundtrack, as they did for the film adaptation about the band Queen and Freddie Mercury “Bohemian Rhapsody”. You can go bolder, and let the performers of the main roles to sing themselves - so Theron Edgerton sang for Elton John in “Rocketman” (and even released a great soundtrack album), and Angelina Jolie - for Maria Callas in “Maria” (though only in episodes when the voice of the opera diva has already weakened). Success - at least commercially, achieved only “Bohemian Rhapsody” - although the same “Rocketman” was no worse, and in courage and fiction (Elton John's songs were woven into his own story) - even better. “Better Man”, judging by the first information about the collections, also did not become a hit - and this is doubly frustrating, because they combined the courage of ‘Rocketman’ (the main character is not afraid to show himself from the unsightly side), bright musical numbers (again, the plots of the songs illustrate stories from the singer's life) and... radical decision about the singer's appearance. Following in the footsteps of “Planet of the Apes”, the authors made Robbie Williams not just look like a chimpanzee - he is a chimpanzee, and all other people have not turned into “Zooropolis”, and they react to the singing primate as something taken for granted - just like in “Paddington” nobody cares about the fact that the upright bear talks and wears a hat.
It's a risky decision - one wrong step, like the unfortunate eyes of a computer model (as in the early versions of “Sonic”) could turn the whole video sequence into a cringe comparable to the infamous “Cats”. But - whether the technique has grown up, or whether Robbie Williams in his grimaces and epatage and really looked like a monkey - there is no feeling of unnaturalness at all. On the contrary - many reviewers note that such a hero - especially in scenes from childhood - sympathize more strongly. And nobody cares how much the performer resembles (or not) the prototype - Rami Malek still hiccups for Freddie Mercury, despite the Oscar. And somewhere on a subconscious level a much deeper idea is triggered - the hero feels like an outsider - both in the dirty yard as a child, and in the pop band Take That, and even among female fans and on the solo giant stage. If you were Jonno Davies, who played the character's body and facial expressions, you might be frustrated - so much effort and no one gets to see his real face. But the result is worth it.
The story of Robbie Williams is formally not so dramatic - he is alive and well and has not fallen ill with a fatal disease (unlike Freddie Mercury), his personal life fits into the standards of society (unlike Elton John). Almost at the very beginning of his creative journey - at the age of 15 - he “pulled out the golden ticket” - became a member of the band Take That, the success of which was compared to the Beatles. The key emotion of the whole story is sincerity. The hero is tormented, swallows antidepressants, loses and finds his father, gains fame and loses creative freedom, decides to escape from the golden cage and passes the test of personal fame, loses loved ones. Not to mention the addictions that cause our censors to constantly turn on the blur. All of this is shown not without posturing, not without irony, but it's not an attempt to substitute itself for another human being. Yes, there is a chimpanzee on the screen, but does it matter if we feel the hero's pain, his losses, his struggle with himself (powerful schizophrenic inserts of the hero's “meetings” with himself reach a climax in the scene at the final megaconcert).
The musical numbers - unlike the same “Bohemian Rhapsody” - are done with brilliance, invention, and glamor. Especially stands out the dance number Rock DJ with Take That on Regent Street, made according to Broadway models, and you can't take your eyes off it (despite the fact that the shooting itself was in danger of failure - the sudden death of Elizabeth II just before the “motor” led to the cancellation of all plans and the transfer of filming, although all participants had to pay the contract, and the insurance company did not cover the losses, considering the Queen's death a non-insurable event). Under Come Undone Robbie is driving a car towards an almost inevitable accident, under She's the One the story of the birth and death of love unfolds, with an emotional intensity comparable to the famous opening scene in the Pixar cartoon “Up”. And the rendition of “My Way” with the hero's father is a tear-jerker.
Bold, fresh, emotional, beautiful - and all this to the soundtrack of my college youth in the 90s. Ugh! So regardless of your relationship to Robbie Williams' work (even if you confuse him with Robin Williams) - see this movie. It proves that musical biopics can, indeed, “be better”.
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