Today is Robbie Williams’ birthday and a good excuse to write a few words about the film Better Man.

I have not paid much attention to music by Robbie Williams or Take That for a very long time. Besides their hits in the charts, I don’t recall following their careers religiously, although I do remember I always thought Jason Orange was the hot one in the band.

When a film about Robbie Williams played by a CGI monkey directed by Michael Gracey was announced last year, I thought to myself it will probably be a bad film, in the same vein as Tom Hooper’s Cats, and had no intention to watch it.

It was released in the UK on December 26 and I started to see posts on social media about how good it is - by people I know and don’t know. In Dubai, there were preview screenings on December 30 before a wide release on January 2. I was curious and decided to watch it, and make it my last cinema outing of 2024.

I couldn’t believe how much I enjoyed watching it, and was not expecting to also feel moved by it. The motion capture of Jonno Davies as Robbie Williams combined with the CGI chimpanzee actually works. Not to mention the performance of young Robbie Williams (Carter J. Murphy) is utterly moving, especially whilst singing Love, after realising his father left the family.

Baby 🐵 Robbie Williams singing about wanting to feel real love, imagining a duet with the dad who just walked out on them? The tremor in his voice? Cutting to the empty chair when he says come and hold my hand? using his dad’s jacket to wrap around himself?! ART 😭 #BetterMan pic.twitter.com/n0UgsoRlUH
— i z z y (@quietn0w) February 12, 2025

There's a hole in my soul
You can see it in my face, it's a real big place
Come and hold my hand

Utterly heart crushing, and this was in the first ten minutes before the title of the film appeared on the screen.

I watched the film two more times since, on January 5 again in Dubai, and on January 29 in Amsterdam. The Rock DJ scene alone was enough reason for me to see it again on the big screen.

I knew there were a couple of scenes cut in the version released in Dubai, despite the 18+ rating. Surprisingly, scenes showing drawings of penises, the scene at the gay night club, and a concert scene of Take That members wearing assless pants were not cut.

After watching the uncensored version in Amsterdam, I noted only three very short scenes were cut, each were a few seconds long - one sexual scene in a club that didn’t have any nudity, two female fans flashing their breasts, and a foursome featuring three naked women.

Each viewing of the film made me love it more. If it was playing in a cinema today, I would’ve gone to see it again.

From now on, I think cinemas should show Better Man every February 13 to celebrate his birthday. The fans will show up, and an opportunity for people who missed it on the big screen to watch it again. I’m certain of it.

Essentially the film is about the destructive effects of fame on young celebrities (if you don’t know this already, Robbie Williams experienced fame at the age of 16 and became an alcoholic and drug addict before turning 21), pursuing a solo career out of spite - “I’ve no idea how I’m going to pull off a solo career. But there’s an energy to revenge, and it’s very, very seductive.”, insecurities as an artist and performer - “If you're gonna laugh, just do it on the inside, yeah?”, and how Williams learned to overcome addiction (alcohol, drugs, sex) and to cope with mental illness. The end credits in the film includes this helpline: 988 Lifeline Suicide and Crisis Support Service

Listening to the lyrics of the songs featured in the film have made me think very differently of Robbie Williams, especially in songs like Feel, Come Undone, Angels, Better Man, My Way.

In Dubai, I was not exposed to the mostly negative UK media frenzy surrounding him during his solo career circa 1996-2010, and listening to these lyrics made me realise how much he was fighting that alongside his inner demons and insecurities, and dealing with fame and the constant media attention.

Feel (2002)

I just wanna feel real love
Feel the home that I live in
'Cause I got too much life
Running through my veins, going to waste
I don't wanna die
But I ain't keen on living either

Come Undone (2002)

So rock and roll, so corporate suit
So damn ugly, so damn cute
So well trained, so animal
So need your love, so fuck you all
I'm not scared of dying
I just don't want to
If I'd stop lying I'd just disappoint you
I come undone

Angels (1997)

So when I'm lying in my bed
Thoughts running through my head
And I feel that love is dead
I'm loving angels instead
And through it all she offers me protection
A lot of love and affection, whether I'm right or wrong
And down the waterfall, wherever it may take me
I know that life won't break me
When I come to call, she won't forsake me
I'm loving angels instead

Better Man (2000)

As my soul heals the shame
I will grow through this pain
Lord, I'm doing all I can
To be a better man
Go easy on my conscience
'Cause it's not my fault
I know I've been taught
To take the blame
Rest assured my angels
Will catch my tears
Walk me out of here
I'm in pain

My Way (2000)

The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way

Another moment in the film that I found moving is when we hear Robbie Williams describe the period when Take That began their career in the early 1990s by performing in gay clubs, under the advice of Nigel Martin Smith, their manager at the time. In that scene he talked about how he felt accepted, safe and not judged for the first time.

He elaborates on this in a couple of interviews I found online that I’d like to share here:

I’m from a northern English town in a northern English time, the 70s and the 80s, where to grow up at school, the thing that you could be bullied about was you may be a homosexual, so you learn that being a homosexual is a shameful thing and there’s nothing you should aspire to. Also, at the same time, I see the [gay] characters and the people on the TV, and they seem like really nice people and they’re making me feel happy. This is confusing.
As a 16-year-old, I get into a band called Take That, and we do gay clubs for the first 18 months. And what I can say is this, where I’m from, we do kindness and violence really well, and you don’t know which one you’re going to get. So, you’re never safe because you’re surrounded by psychos.
First gay club that I went to, I was safe, I was welcomed, and not only was I welcomed, I was loved and appreciated, and yeah, it was instantly life-changing, life-affirming, and I’m very grateful. Still am. — Attitude

I come from a working class city in the middle of nowhere. No one in England knows where it is to be honest with you. We do two things really well—kindness and violence—and you don’t know which one you’re going to get. And sometimes you get both.
You’re surrounded by psychos, and when you go out, you’re not safe. You go clubbing, you’re not safe. If you go to the pub, you’re not safe. And then all of a sudden, as a 16 year old, I’m introduced into this magical world of safety and acceptance and you didn’t have to worry about getting your head kicked in. And instantly, I’m sold. I’m in. This is my tribe. We did gay clubs for 18 months solid and my love for it, that experience, has lasted with me for a lifetime.
I’m from a place—the 80s and a Northern industrial town—where to be gay was leveled against people as a slight. So to actually leave school, join a band, go into the gay world and go, ‘these people are the best people’, is something that has stayed with me all my life. I think that there’s a few ways you can go when you feel like an outsider—and everybody feels like an outsider—you can react to that with misery, violence, or you can react to that by joining in with all the other outsiders and make yourselves feel as though you’re in a safe place. That is my relationship to that period of my life and to this day if I go clubbing, I go to a gay club. — The Queer Review

I can go on and on about every musical scene in Better Man, but for now will share these two:

The digital visual effects in this film are some of the best I’ve seen in years.

Better Man didn’t do well at the box office, particularly in America, but I am certain it will gain more fans and a dedicated cult following all over the world. I already feel I am part of the current cult following. Americans will catch up slowly. If you have not yet watched this film, please rectify this as soon as possible and join our tribe.

From America Doesn’t Need To “Get” Robbie Williams by Daisy Jones (Vogue UK, January 2025)

He’s had a number of misses in among his myriad hits (someone hide “Rudebox” from the American people). His songs, which have often teetered between bolshiness and fragility, ego and vulnerability, Britpop and showtunes-esque balladry, don’t really make sense without the man himself. Because to try and understand Robbie based on his music alone is to miss the point entirely. It’s like judging a Wetherspoons meal on its actual taste, rather than the ritual of getting a full English for £5.75 on a hangover. Or trying to explain why smoking areas are culturally significant. They just are. Robbie Williams just is. And we love him for it.

From The Strange and Enduring Legacy of Robbie Williams by Moya Lothian-McLean (The Line of Best Fit, August 2019)

The alchemy of Robbie Williams has long been in effect; his status as the best-selling Britsh male solo artist of all-time is testimony to that. One of my favourite anecdotes to reel off in the kitchen at parties, is the intel that Robbie Williams is actually, properly global; he’s the number one non-Latino musician in Latin America. It’s a fact always received with surprise; Robbie is such an endemically British export with his lack of filter and love of sharp sarcasm, his continued commitment to a very specific style of shithousery, his forays into deeply embarrassing novelty pop, that it seems bizarre to think any other nation could fully understand and embrace him without understanding the cultural context that has produced such a person. But they do, and they adore him for it across the world - except America, and Robbie was never going to make it there. He has too much about him. Coldplay, could crack the US with bland, inoffensive stadium rock but Robbie, with his demons and his tattoos and his hedonism? Absolutely not and it’s their loss.

If you still have doubts about Better Man, perhaps Taylor Tomlinson can convince you to see it. I also want that t-shirt.

This was Robbie Williams’ acceptance speech at the AACTA Awards in Australia last week, where Better Man won Best Film:

“I'd like to thank drugs, ADHD, depression, anxiety, dyslexia, dyscalculia, insomnia, dyspraxia, a lack of self-awareness, a lack of self-worth, a fear of social interaction, body dysmorphia, addiction, alcoholism, and a lower than average sized-penis – without which, none of this film would be possible.”

You can watch it here, after the 3rd minute.

Whilst I was in Amsterdam, I broke my never stepping inside a Moco Museum rule because there was a Robbie Williams: Pride and Self-Prejudice exhibition. I didn’t know about his drawings and paintings before. These are a few photos I took.

There were also cards with pencils asking visitors you to write 5 positive things about themselves.

When I went to rehab for the first time in the 90s, one exercise they did was to ask me to write down all the negative things I think about myself – it was easy and the pen flowed.
Then, and I wasn’t expecting this, they asked me to write down all the positive things I think about myself. I stared hard at the paper for ages, biro in hand, completely blank. Not one single positive thing came to mind.
Time has passed and I feel empathy for the younger me. At times, I don’t know if the page will remain unwritten. We also have a habit of being able to recklessly, and with gay abandon, say all the negative stuff but none of the positive. I implore you to write down all the positive stuff you would say about yourself without fear of someone thinking you’re a big head.
I’ll start.

I’m kind.
I’m empathic.
I’m loyal.
I’m charismatic.
I’m creative.

There you go! I started, you go now.
Robbie Williams

On his instagram account, I found this which is my favourite drawing by him so far, only because it’s the one I related to the most.

I will now mark February 13 as Robbie Williams and Better Man day. I love Angels just like everyone else, but will leave you with another favourite song by him, but not featured in the film.

No Regrets (1999) [featuring vocals by Neil Tennant from Pet Shop Boys - one of my top three favourite bands, Depeche Mode and New Order are the other two]

No regrets
They don't work
No regrets now
They only hurt

Robbie Williams and Better Man Day