March 31, 2025 – I'd been waiting months to see this because it never opened in local theaters, so I had to wait until it was available on streaming services. It turns out to be a fairly standard biographical drama about a pop singer, with one major difference, he's portrayed as a monkey man.

I didn't know that's what it was all about at first because I'd never heard of the singer, who turns out to be an actual person named Robbie Williams (who plays himself in the movie, sort of) or the actual boy band he was a member of, called Take That. Williams is reportedly well known in England, Australia and New Zealand. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, according to Wikipedia, but this movie made only nine percent of its total gross income in the United States (according to Box Office Mojo) perhaps because Williams is not as well known here.

The story of Williams is very much like that of some other troubled people in the entertainment business, who attain fame at an early age and then have a lot of trouble adjusting to it. Williams, played by himself, as well as Carter J. Murphy as his youthful voice, and Jonno Davies as his adult motion capture body double, appears on screen as a kind of cross between a chimpanzee and a human for the entire movie. It is the same kind of performance pioneered by Andy Serkis playing Gollum in the “Lord of the Rings” movies.

This monkey man depiction is strikingly lifelike, with expressive features, but it does dehumanize Williams to some extent. It is difficult for ordinary people to sympathize much with someone who has attained fame and wealth as an entertainer, but still manages to feel unhappy and sorry for himself. Being a monkey man on top of that doesn't help to make Williams a more sympathetic character.

This is a musical, and Williams is a capable singer, and there is an upbeat ending which helps lighten the dark mood that permeates most the movie. Williams suffers from an unhappy childhood, punctuated by the abandonment of his father, Peter (played by Steve Pemberton). Peter runs away from home to be an entertainer. This abandonment is scarring, but also paradoxically inspires Williams' ambitions.

Williams main source of emotional support comes from his grandmother, Betty (Alison Steadman of “The King's Man”) and her death hits him hard at a bad time, when he is especially emotionally vulnerable. Landing a spot in the boy band Take That propels him to fame as a teen idol, but not much money, since most of the money goes to the band's lead singer and songwriter, as well as the band's manager, promoters, producers and distributors, etc.

Williams becomes an alcoholic and gets hooked on drugs. He becomes an unreliable performer and is kicked out of the band. Eventually, he launches a solo career and becomes a big star, penning and performing his own songs. He eventually achieves his goal of playing in a huge music venue before a crowd of 125,000 fans. The pinnacle of his success, however, is also the pinnacle of his emotional breakdown.

The whole conceit of the monkey man personae is supposed to represent Williams being an “unevolved” man, sort of stuck in childhood. It would follow then, if Williams does evolve, dealing with his emotional problems, his addictions, and repairing his broken relationships, he should transform into human form, but he does not. That is another problem with the monkey man personae. It becomes a distraction from the central story of Williams' emotional development.

This is an engaging movie with some good music, good performances (including Raechelle Banno playing Nicole Appleton, a singer and Robbie's fiancée). The film also features amazing motion capture effects, and some engrossing fantasy sequences with very imaginative visuals.

The main problem I had was that the movie is way too long at two hours and 15 minutes. It gets its points across, but then beats them to death. The darkness of the film's depressing emotional underwater slog (sometimes depicted as that, literally) drags on way too long. It finally surfaces for air, but that part of the story is too brief.

I'll give this movie some credit for being ambitious and imaginative, with one real show-stopping musical number (vocalist Adam Tucker assists in this number) but I think it probably is a lot more entertaining for those who have at least heard of Robbie Williams, or better yet, those who like his music. This movie rates a B.

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