Biographical films have long been favoured by Hollywood studios for their prestige while offering actors the kind of meaty roles that win audiences – and Oscars. This year’s Oppenheimer was no exception, winning in seven categories including best film, best director and best actor. The film employed creative licence to dramatise the life of J Robert Oppenheimer, the iconic physicist and wartime director of the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, as he and his fellow atomic scientists and engineers raced to develop the first atomic bomb in the early 1940s. But did the movie push those liberties far enough? That’s the question asked by new biopics that place perhaps a greater value on interpretation, not just documentation. The first is the upcoming musical biopic Better Man, in which rock star Robbie Williams is portrayed as a chimpanzee, while everyone else around him remains human. Directed by Michael Gracey, the filmmaker behind The Greatest Showman – a $435m grossing hit – the film is released on Boxing Day in the UK. It follows the chimp version of Williams from a fractious childhood to boy-band fame with Take That and, later, solo superstardom.
Hot on its heels comes Piece by Piece, a $16m musical documentary – the first Lego documentary – about hip-hop superstar Pharrell Williams. Williams wrote five new tracks for the film and took care to ensure the Lego versions of his friends, family and collaborators were as true to life as blocky mini-figures could be. His top priority? Nailing the hairstyles for fellow rappers Pusha T, Kendrick Lamar and Snoop Dogg.
These films highlight the merit of abandoning literal representation and allowing biopics to break free from traditional cinematic storytelling. When it comes to musical icons, recent biopics about Queen and Elton John suggest that audiences relish a wild, fantastical spin on the classic tale of rise, fall and comeback. Others reject the notion that screen biographies must reduce complex lives into neat story arcs. The 2007 film I’m Not There, in which a series of actors embody the many facets of Bob Dylan, is one such example. Another is 2017’s Loving Vincent, an animated exploration of the final months of Vincent van Gogh’s life, in which every frame is crafted in the style of one of his canvases.
Creative formats also offer symbolic layers to the storytelling. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the out-of-circulation cult classic Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story. In an experimental short biographical film Todd Haynes – who later directed I’m Not There – cast a downmarket version of the popular doll Barbie in the title role. The 1987 film was an ambitious, if uneven, attempt to compare the singer Karen Carpenter to Barbie, showing how their doll-like images reflect the contradictions of American consumer culture. The film took aim at the stifling ideals of femininity and consumerism, portraying anorexia as a self-destructive push for control in a world of unattainable standards.
What these films suggest is that biopics need not aim for objective reality. Instead, they thrive when they interpret the meaning and impact of a life — or even a part of one. By embracing creative risk and innovation, they affirm that the essence of a life is often best captured not by faithful documentation, but by reimagining it.
• This article was amended on 6 December 2024. Owing to an editing error, an earlier version described the avatar of Robbie Williams in Better Man as a monkey, rather than a chimpanzee.
• This leading article was not filed on the days on which NUJ members in the UK were on strike.
