The Snapshot: Phenomenal music numbers bring needed fun, style and reasoning to Robbie Williams’ life story, seen through the eyes of an ape.

Better Man

7 out of 10

14A, 2hrs 15mins. Music Biography Fantasy.

Directed by Michael Gracey.

Starring Jonno Davies, Robbie Williams, Steve Pemberton, Raechelle Banno, Kate Mulvany and Alison Steadman.

Better Man, at the very least, is the best musical biography movie with the main character depicted as a CGI chimpanzee that I’ve ever seen.

Robbie Williams’ life story is a mix of (literal) money business along with great showmanship and outstanding scenes of Williams’ music. Unlike the common knowledge of most musical biopics, it’s also enjoyable to actually learn something new about the main character and their real history.

Director Michael Gracey (best known for 2017’s megahit The Greatest Showman) has conceptualized the life of English pop star Robbie Williams in an unusual way. While it follows the expected formula of a singer’s life story as so many movies do, it quite unexpectedly features Williams through his life as a monkey.

At first, the idea didn’t make much sense. What’s the point of changing Williams’ species? What could it possibly add to the story? And how would it influence the rest of the film?

The answer is revealed early, however, and wisely reinforces the main theme. The real Williams narrates the film, describing how he’s regularly felt “othered” and misunderstood as a person through his public life. 

So the story is imagined in this Hollywood film as Williams not just living with his private self-imposed isolation, but with an obvious public one as well. Being a chimpanzee, it’s slightly familiar in his possible humanity, but as also unfamiliar with his struggle to identify with others now shown as an interspecies conflict.

Fortunately, none of this takes away from the heart of Williams’ story rising as a music superstar, nor does it overshadow the spectacular musical numbers and sequences.

I reviewed Michael Gracey’s work on his well-known The Greatest Showman, and I stand by my heavy criticism of the bad script and songs that pandered to the audience. But here, he’s got much richer and clearer writing that feels more nuanced and less stylized, which is a better match for his glamorous directing style.

Read more here: Review – The Greatest Showman is far from great

Gracey got his start as the director of music videos, and that skill is amplified here in Better Man with several truly inventive and eye-popping songs. “Rock DJ”, celebrating a new record deal, is one of my favourite scenes I’ve seen from any movie in the last year. It’s a single take of song and dance mayhem that’s gratuitously fun.

If you can get over the barrier of seeing Williams as a large ape, there’s great songs and a compelling (if overlong) story to see here. 

It’s still over-the-top, but most of it is also a lot of fun – and a great intro to a musical talent we here in North America have maybe overlooked for too long.

“Nahir,” a brooding, glamourized and sexed-up account of a notorious Argentine murder case, is a mystery thriller that aims for engrossing and immersive that never falls short of quite watchable along the way.

Screenwriter Sofia Wilhelmi and director Hernán Gu

erschuny take great pains — with flashbacks and flashbacks within flashbacks — to show us several versions of the title character’s account of what happened the fateful night in which she allegedly killed her allegedly abusive lover.

We’re treated to backstory which dissects the aloof and mysterious teen beauty who either planned a crime of lover’s revenge, carried it out and took some pains to cover up her involvement, or didn’t. Not in the ways the earliest versions of her account of that fateful night played out, anyway.

Valentina Zenera plays Nahir as a vain beauty confident in her allure, even at her (seen in a flashback) quinceañera. Nahir dreams of riding the premiere float at Gualeguaychú’s famed carnival parade and riding that to fame as a model.

Not that she says much of this out loud. Nahir is depicted as inscrutable, controlled and controlling. All the boys fancy her and no one gets more of her attention, and manipulation, than 20 year-old Federico (Simon Hempe).

Nahir says they’re broken up. Then they’re together. As the narrative jumps back and forth from “before the crime” (in Spanish with English subtitles) to “after the crime,” we see both their torrid affair — “torrid” at least in his eyes — and her “No, we weren’t dating” way of describing it to her friends and eventually to the cops.

Because one night, Federico rides his motorbike to his doom.

We see how Nahir takes the “news” of his death. “Poker-faced” barely does that reaction justice. We watch the early questioning, the tear she tries to summon up or fake with a tissue.

And we learn that Nahir’s adored and adoring Dad (César Bordón) is a pistol-packing police officer. If there’s one thing that’s become accepted wisdom the world over in recent years, it’s the idea that police in most any country all consider themselves experts in one thing — knowing what they can get away with, and how.

When Dad says “I’ll get you out of here…I’m working on it. You’ll be home by New Year’s,” Nahir believes it. Is it because of what she knows, or what she knows that he knows?

As we see Nahir’s (perhaps) ex-beauty queen mother (Mónica Antonópulos) primp and prep her for a pageant and for a TV prison interview, we pick up on the dynamic of the household and the narcissism of our heroine.

“No crying,” Mom insists before her interrogation. Or did she? Federico’s come-ons are punctuated with a macho “I get anything I want.” Dad wasn’t shy about showing his pistol to would-be stalkers who stare at Nahir in crowds. His icy “princesa” never betrays any emotion at any of this.

The court case reveals more than just the lovers’ exchanged “love of my life” texts. Protesters demand “justice” for Federico, but witnesses paint a more complicated picture of their on-and-off romance. And as her situation isn’t quickly resolved — one way or the other — and her “story” changes, we wonder what really happened.

I like the way the story’s jumps backwards and forwards in time to wrongfoot the viewer. We’re given just enough information to decide on guilt or innocence, and then new information is brought to light. Think again.

Now on Amazon Prime, “Nahir” was longer when it played in Argentina, and reviews of this “true” story there weren’t the best. Perhaps it’s tighter, as the Prime cut of the film is 14 minutes shorter. Or perhaps Argentines are more invested in the story and uninterested in the doubts “Nahir” suggests.

Zenere, underplaying in ways that hint at the character’s similarities to Amanda Knox — accused because she underreacts to news of a murder — makes her character believably guilty or possibly innocent. And whatever verdict, she ensures the narcissistic Nahir is never seen with a hair out of place or eye shadow and earrings that aren’t perfectly matched, even behind bars.

Rating: TV-16, violence, sex, profanity

Cast: Valentina Zenere, Simon Hempe, Mónica Antonópulos and César Bordón

Credits: Directed by Hernán Guerschuny, scripted by Sofia Wilhelmi. An MGM release on Amazon Prime.

Running time: 1:48

Jimmy Kimmel is moved by community support and the commitment of first responders amid a dark period of L.A. history defined by devastating wildfires and immense loss.

Returning Monday to his late-night TV slot, Kimmel delivered an emotional opening monologue about the “very scary, very stressful, very strange week here in L.A.” Several fires broke out last week across Southern California, stoked by a “life-threatening and destructive” windstorm. The most devastating blazes, in Pacific Palisades and Altadena, continue to burn and have damaged or destroyed more than 12,000 structures and killed 24 people.

“It’s been terrible,” Kimmel said after reflecting on the fires, including the since-extinguished Sunset fire that threatened his studio in Hollywood. “Everyone who lives in this city knows someone, most of us multiple people — families, friends, colleagues, neighbors — whose houses burned down, and the truth is we don’t even know it’s over.”

The last week has been a “sickening, shocking, awful experience,” but Kimmel also said a bright spot has been the “beauty from seeing the community coming together to support each other.” After briefly chiding President-elect Donald Trump for railing against California politicians, Kimmel turned the spotlight onto first responders, including the inmate crews that have been battling the wildfires.

“We should never stop thanking them,” Kimmel said. In addition to local and out-of-state first responders, the Emmy-winning host also lauded police, the National Guard, local news reporters and the Watch Duty app.

“Real superheroes,” he added.

Kimmel’s opening segment also praised the Angelenos who have organized donation drives, businesses that have offered support to affected residents and “unexpected hero” Steve Guttenberg. Since last week, the “Police Academy” star has remained in his Palisades neighborhood to aid emergency efforts. Guttenberg told Kimmel his latest mission has included saving a dog and putting out small fires in the area.

Although the fires have brought devastation, Kimmel said, the last week has also been full of various lessons — including those on firefighting terminology and emergency responses.

“I feel like I’m an expert now,” he joked. “Before this happened, most of what I knew about fire safety came from watching ‘Paw Patrol.’”

The final minutes of Kimmel’s 15-minute monologue featured a super-cut of local coverage highlighting community efforts, including donation drives and free meal services.

On Monday, the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” team announced its efforts to give back to people affected by the fires. The production has set up a donation center behind its Hollywood studio, at 6901 Hawthorn Ave. The center will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily until Friday.

SoCal residents should remain vigilant this week as officials voiced concern that a new round of strong winds, paired with dry fuel and low humidity, could result in new fires starting or existing blazes expanding. An unprecedented fourth “particularly dangerous situation” fire weather warning took effect Tuesday morning and is expected to last through Wednesday, affecting swaths of Los Angeles County and surrounding counties.

“Life-threatening and destructive and widespread winds are already here,” Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said during a news conference Tuesday. “We are taking an aggressive, lean forward posture … strategically placing fire patrols and engines in the unimpacted high fire risk areas in the city. We are carefully managing our operations to ensure that we can quickly respond to any new fires.”

Times staff writers Rong-Gon Lin II, Hannah Fry and Grace Toohey contributed to this report.