Lest anybody come away from this pondering that “Higher Man” is all in regards to the lurid spectacle of a well-known determine’s fall from grace, I guarantee you that is solely the half of it. The biopic is much more fascinated with Robbie Williams’ well-known comeback, turning his life and his profession round over the course of a number of years — not essentially by way of willpower alone, however by the therapeutic and redemptive energy of rehab. For director Michael Gracey, that performed a reasonably important position in what goes down in the course of the Knebworth Competition mayhem:
“The concept of combating your self is one thing I feel we’re all accustomed to, and also you get an concept of that self-loathing and that self-judgement going by way of each efficiency that he does. He is at all times clocking himself out within the viewers, looking in disgust. So it reaches this level at Knebworth, since you go, in your head, ‘Oh, that is clearly this man’s biggest second of his life. He is performing to 125,000 individuals, he did it three nights in a row, he broke each report on the time.’ You are identical to, that is what you suppose is somebody’s biggest second of happiness the place he is fulfilling all his goals. And but, on the time, it was an absolute nightmare. Robbie would not keep in mind that efficiency in any respect, which, to me, speaks to how checked out he was, mentally. That is unimaginable, to have one of many biggest moments you can ever expertise and never keep in mind it.”
The place “Higher Man” shines essentially the most is in its depiction of a live performance that begins out full of life and enjoyable … solely to devolve right into a harrowing battle in Robbie Williams’ thoughts, culminating in a darkish second the place he gruesomely slays an attacker revealed to be himself as a child. For Gracey, that sudden low level had its roots in a real-world therapeutic method for these in rehab. As he defined:
“After which clearly it involves fairly an abrupt halt when he kills his youthful self, which relies on going to rehab and one of many strategies the place they present you a photograph of your youthful self at age 5 or 6, and principally say, ‘Would you be doing what you are doing to your self to this little boy?’ And naturally persons are like, ‘No, I freaking love that child. As if I might do that to that boy.’ They usually’re like, ‘Nicely, that is you.'”
You possibly can hear Jacob Corridor’s full interview with Gracey within the again half of right this moment’s episode of the /Movie Each day podcast:
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