You really can’t make a traditional biopic anymore. If there’s not something different about your film, audiences just won’t accept it these days. Cradle to the grave just doesn’t work. You either need to zoom in on a specific period in your subject’s life or tackle the genre in a different manner. With Better Man, the story of Robbie Williams has a hell of a hook, one I know most people were not expecting. It sounds bonkers, and it is, but somehow, it works.

Better Man is able to distinguish itself by taking the piss out of how traditional this biopic would otherwise be. Williams is a superstar singer, sure, but the rise, fall, and redemption angle has been done so many times before. What makes it so unique here? Well, if you’re somehow not aware, Williams is depicted at all times as a CGI chimpanzee. No one calls attention to it, ever. To everyone else, it’s just Williams. To us, and to the man himself, it’s a chimp telling his tale. Readers, it livens things up in a way that damn near stunned me.

We meet Robbie Williams (Jonno Davies for motion capture, Williams himself for the voice) as a boy (or as a young chimp) trying to impress his performer father Peter (Steve Pemberton). That will be a through line for his whole life, especially when Peter leaves to seek his own success. Left with his mother and grandmother, he’s not much of a student, but he is a showman. Eventually, that sheer force of personality makes him a part of a boy band that blows up, managed by the dismissive Nigel Martin Smith (Damon Herriman), beginning his rise to stardom.

As he becomes more and more famous, Williams becomes a drunk and drug addict, romances Nicole Appleton (Raechelle Banno), and gets into all sorts of trouble, all the while having Peter come in and out of his life. It’s all the sort of thing you’d get bored by, if not for the man himself having so much charisma, plus…yeah, he’s a monkey the whole time. In addition, there’s a sneakily emotional ending that works way better than you’re expecting, too.

Having Robbie Williams voice his CGI self while Jonno Davies plays him through motion capture works so much better than you’d expect it to. Truly it does. They combine to never call attention to the gimmick or to their work, instead capturing the cinematic portrait of the man. It’s real strong teamwork. That’s important, too, since the other performances more or less fade into the background. Steve Pemberton is solid, but he’s in and out of the narrative. In addition to Raechelle Banno and Damon Herriman, supporting players here include Tom Budge, Frazer Hadfield, Anthony Hayes, Kate Mulvaney, Alison Steadman, and more.

Director/co-writer Michael Gracey is emboldened by the ape aspect, which puts the film’s tongue firmly in cheek, even when covering all the expected territory. Along with co-writers Oliver Cole and Simon Gleeson, Gracey does the greatest hits, both in terms of the life story and the music. The script is nothing to get too excited about, but Gracey’s direction, which manages to never call extra attention to the chimp, is a highlight. I was not a fan of The Greatest Showman, but Gracey has won me over here. Plus, Williams himself has such personality, that shines through, helping to keep the flick from ever seeming plodding.

Better Man works because it dares to be different in one sense. The biopic aspect is more or less standard issue, but the CGI chimp, alongside Williams’ charisma, is undeniable. Plus, while the original song Forbidden Road is no longer Oscar eligible, it’s a lovely tune at the end. If you’re a Robbie Williams fan, this is a must see. Everyone else? Prepare for something more fun than you might be expecting.

SCORE: ★★★

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“People make up their past, they remember what they want, they forget the rest.”

So says Timothée Chalamet, who plays Bob Dylan in the brilliant new film, A Complete Unknown, in a tense confrontation with Elle Fanning, who plays Sylvie Russo, a character based on Dylan’s on-and-off NYC girlfriend Suze Rotolo, as she prods him to share more about his mysterious past. Of course, he doesn’t, setting the stage for the enduring mystery of perhaps the greatest singer-songwriter of all time, a puzzle that continues to intrigue us.

I was fortunate to attend an advance screening of the movie over the weekend, and I can assure you, the buzz around this film is real. A Complete Unknown deserves all the accolades you’ve been hearing – including three Golden Globe nominations and Oscar talk for Chalamet, as well as for Edward Norton, who plays a perfect Pete Seeger. At the screening, the sold-out Newport audience widely applauded the film as the closing credits rolled; no one yelled “Judas” and no boos were audible.

The film, which should appeal to a wide audience given Chalamet’s youthful charm, opens Christmas Day across the country and begins an extensive run at Newport’s Jane Pickens Theatre on December 26. Advance tickets are available here.

Unlike some other great music biopics (Walk the Line, Bohemian Rhapsody, Coal Miner’s Daughter), A Complete Unknown covers a comparatively brief period in Dylan’s life, from his arrival and rise to fame in New York’s Greenwich Village in 1961, to that divisive moment when he “went electric” at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, a cultural moment as important as Elvis on Ed Sullivan or The Beatles landing at JFK.

Chalamet is extraordinary playing the well-known singer, but still manages to build out his own character, much like Joachin Phoenix did in his Johnny Cash interpretation in I Walk the Line. And that’s not easy – Dylan is quirky and not easy to mimic. In interviews, Chalamet has said that he had several years to learn Dylan’s mannerisms, mirroring his vocals and acquiring his distinct guitar strumming patterns. He sings all the songs in the film, very close to the original recordings. And it works – Dylan himself recently approved the performance in a widely shared tweet.

Director James Mangold boldly re-creates Greenwich Village in the early 60s, with all the spirited grit and grime of the time, in street scenes and tightly packed basement nightclubs where folk music ruled the day. The story is compelling, the music is authentic, and the acting is outstanding all-around, with love interests Elle Fanning (Sylvie Russo) and Monica Barbaro (Joan Baez) brilliant in their supporting roles.

Mangold doesn’t over-mythologize Dylan, and the film doesn’t shy away from the singer’s darker side, his often rude treatment of those close to him, especially women, and his nasty eye rolls directed toward his mentor, folk legend Pete Seeger. Bob Dylan – always an enigma, kind of a bully, and occasionally “an asshole” as Barbaro, playing Baez, tells him.

Of course, the film plays fast and loose with many facts; Rolling Stone magazine spotted over two dozen places where the film veers from the known historical record, but let’s remember that this a work of historical fiction, not a documentary. It’s closer to the spirit of the truth than anything else I’ve seen about Dylan, including interviews with the bard, who is known for his reticence and occasional deception. The story closely mirrors that period in his life, and the spirit of the narrative is certainly one version of the truth. 

Meanwhile, here on Aquidneck Island, where Dylan and his like stormed the Bastille at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, he’s not so unknown. His spirit is ever present at the Festival, where he appeared from 1963-1965 and again in 2002, sporting a strange wig that still has fans guessing. The “City by the Sea,” along with Greenwich Village, serve almost as co-stars in the film, with frequent Newport references and numerous scenes from the festival grounds and the Viking Hotel. (Note: those scenes were filmed mainly in New Jersey.)

As far as getting to know Dylan’s motivations a little better through the film, that ain’t happening. Chalamet plays him close to the chest, as elusive as ever. When I interviewed longtime Festival producer George Wein in 2015, he told me that Dylan, like Miles Davis in the jazz world, intentionally curated a certain persona, centered around an air of mystery. “Both were always concerned with not doing what you expected of them … throughout their life,” said Wein. “Dylan, his last album, nobody would ever dream he would do an album of Tin Pan Alley ballads.”

The film echoes Wein’s remarks. Dylan was never afraid to take the initiative, from visiting Woody Guthrie in the hospital when he arrived in New York to choosing an electric guitar at Newport in ’65. Sure, he was influenced by the people around him, but he was always his own boss, rarely submitting to the will of others. He did things his way, and continues to do so, like it or not. Perhaps that’s part of the reason he’s such the icon he has become today. Indeed, “If you’re not busy being born, you’re busy dying.”

Click here for more information on A Complete Unknown.

RED ONE (2024) directed by Jake Kasdan, stars Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans, is an urban fantasy Christmas action-thriller, fitting neatly into no known genre, which will perhaps be enjoyable to anyone willing to grant the somewhat silly premise, and perhaps not to anyone unwilling.

This film enjoys a remarkably high audience score but a remarkably low score from the establishment film critics. This is usually a sign that the film is normal and enjoyable, not perverse nor woke.

But the film did not seem normal to me, by which I mean, I can think of no other urban fantasy Christmas action-thriller. As such, this film runs the risk of falling between the stools. Action film fans might well pan it for its fantastical elements, whereas fans of Christmas family films might well pan it for its untraditional, even disrespectful, handling of common elements of the Santa Claus fairy tale.

As for Christians, we have long ago ceased to expect any mention of Christ or Christmas in a Christmas movie, aside from Linus quoting scripture in a Charlie Brown telly special from two generations ago.

Regardless, this filmgoer found the film perfectly enjoyable: nor were any elements visible which might provoke the establishment film critics. I cannot explain the high audience score nor the low critic score.

In the film, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson plays Callum Drift, a hardboiled six-foot-five elf serving a remarkably trim and athletic Santa as his chief of North Pole security.

Drift wishes to retire, as the Naughty List grows ever longer, and his faith in mankind fails. However, even as he is preparing his resignation letter, he sees Santa’s workshop assaulted by a black ops team of kidnappers. Draft gives chase, but the evildoers elude him.

Santa’s workshop is hidden beneath a holographic forcefield, but the secret international body charged with keeping the peace between the various mythical entities, the M.O.R.A (Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority) soon discovers a hacker who broke into their security and betrayed them: gambling lowlife and deadbeat dad Jack O’Malley, played with evident zest by Chris Evans.

We are treated to a scene of O’Malley picking up his juvenile-delinquent son after school, where the boy got detention for monkeying with the school computer records: the father thereupon gives him a stern talking-to, that is, by cautioning him to cover his tracks better, and trust no confederates.

This is after we see O’Malley stealing candy from a baby, just so the audience harbors no doubt that this is not Captain America.

In short order O’Malley is mugged by MORA agents and brought in for questioning: not knowing who hired him, O’Malley nonetheless planted spyware on his paymaster, hence knows his location, but nothing else. The O’Malley and Drift are forced to team up against the better judgment of both: shenanigans ensue.

The pair must battle evil snowmen, sneak into a monster-infested castle, and confront an eerie player-piano playing the Nutcracker suite perched in the middle of an empty, fog-bound highway in Germany.

In one particularly well-done scene, O’Malley and his juvenile-delinquent son are miniaturized and trapped in snow-globes meant to imprison the unrepentant. When he sees his son terrified, O’Malley’s fatherly instincts come to the fore: he confesses his mistakes, he asks forgiveness, and he vows to amend his ways. Any mainstream critic not familiar with threefold steps of traditional Christian confession might not grasp the significance.

ikewise, anyone unfamiliar with the less well known nooks and crannies of Old World Christmas lore might not recognize the figures chosen to be the heavies here: Gryla is an Icelandic ogress who eats naughty children at Christmas time, while Krampus, from Romania, is goat-horned fork-tongued helper to Saint Nicholas, who punishes naughty children by birching them with a rod, or stuffing them in to a bag for abduction or drowning.

No version of these tales ever took root in America Christmas tradition — being rather alien to the American spirit — albeit within the last ten years, as our spirit is being lost, among the anti-Christmas crowd and low-grade horror directors Krampus has gained popularity. The version of Krampus is this film is rather charming in his own dark way, which may have the unfortunate side-effect the augmenting the popularity of the anti-Christmas or low-grade horror film versions.

All three characters, Drift, O’Malley, and even Krampus have uncomplex but satisfying character arcs: Drift regains his faith in humanity after O’Malley turns over a new leaf. This character growth, as stated, is uncomplex, as befits an action movie, but satisfying, as befits a Christmas movie.

And the rule of fairy-tale was strictly followed, which is, namely, that when you are told to touch nothing, and you touch something, disaster ensues.

The tale is set in our modern world, but with certain enclaves of the mythological world scattered here and there, hidden behind mist and illusion. This conceit of a hidden world within our own is familiar and beloved trope of the genre.

The special effects deceived my eye: to me they looks smooth and seamless. And the props and settings and art direction in general seemed a blend of gothic and cyberpunk Victoriana, as befits a high-tech version of Christmasland.

The fantastical elements of the movie are well handled, by which I mean the abilities, and also the limitations, of every magical power or magical tool is briefly but succinctly made clear: the audience should be no more bewildered than Jack O’Malley. Anything not explained in dialog was clear enough in how it was used. Of note was the “reality adjustment” wristband used by Drift, which allowed him to turn rock’em-sock’em robots or matchbox cars real.

There was also a clever bit of by-play which allowed the befuddled characters to recognize each other despite being bedeviled by shapechangers.

The theme of the piece is appropriately straightforward: no rogue is beyond redemption, nor any cynic either. This is as befits as thoroughly secular version of an urban fantasy Christmas action thriller comedy, I suppose.

As part of the conceit of the film, just as jolly fat Santa is here fit and hardboiled military type (the marine version of Saint Nick, as it were) so too is his miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer here replaced by a high-tech flying behemoth pulled by monstrous deer-titans.

I have no complaint about this film in part because I was expecting it to be terrible, when, in fact, it was enjoyable good clean fun. Nothing lewd, crude or shocking was involved.

Still, it was a good, clean, fun movie, starring charming actors and actresses, with thrilling action scenes, funny comedic bits, great deadpan acting from Dwayne Johnson — who, let it be known — just plays Dwayne Johnson being himself, and wry snark from Chris Evans.

Christmas Specials involve the birth of Christ, and Xmas Specials involve Santa Claus. Here, Santa is called “Saint Nicholas of Myra” once in one line — which is the closest this otherwise entirely secular-Xmas film comes to acknowledging the meaning of Christmas.

You can watch Red One now on Amazon Prime Video here.

Originally published here.