Better Man has the boldest take on celebrity biopics but not only not casting an actor to play Robbie Williams, but not even portraying him as human. Williams and Jonno Davies did the performance capture to show Williams as a monkey for the entire film. Weta Digital solved several problems to achieve director Michael Gracey’s approach, not the least of which was giving the monkey a Williams-worthy butt.
“His butt is a great example,” Visual Effects Supervisor Luke Millar says in the bonus features on the 4K UHD release. “Robbie won Rear of the Year like three years running or something like that.”
Imagine being the Weta artist whose job it was to creaft a monkey butt.
“When we first put the monkey butt in leather pants, there wasn’t anything to look at,” Millar continued. “So we had to sculpt a more voluptuous package, put it that way.”
The monkey completely holds up in 4K. I mean, it’s Weta. Come on. Though filmed on digital Arri Alexa, Gracey gave the film grain in every scene to look gritty, if a bit hazy. That helps hide all the visual effects, not just the monkey but also the shots stitched together to create a single take, and the musical dance gags.
In surround sound, the music fills the room. There are some sound effects, often when Williams spirals so imagines drowning underwater or other monkeys judging him. Crowds swarm and camera flashes overwhelm, but the crowd singing along to “My Way” at the end feels peaceful and rewarding.