"As you'll no doubt have heard by now", Robbie Williams is portrayed in this biopic – directed by The Greatest Showman's Michael Gracey – as an ape, said Patrick Cremona in Radio Times.
"More specifically", the pop star narrates the film, while he is played on screen by an actor (Jonno Davies) who has been transformed by computer wizardry, so that for "every minute of the movie", whether Robbie is grieving his beloved nan in rainy Stoke-on-Trent, "performing to thousands in concert, or snorting cocaine backstage, he's depicted as a chimpanzee". This takes a bit of getting used to, but eventually you "find yourself getting swept up in the sheer emotion of watching Robbie's story unfold across the extreme highs and disastrous lows". It helps, too, that the film is generously sprinkled with his hits, which are worked into the plot "via dynamically staged musical numbers".
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