For many Americans, director Michael Gracey’s kaleidoscopic portrait of the Brit-pop sensation’s career will double as an overdue introduction.

Robbie Williams may not be familiar to many in the United States, but in his native Britain, he became a huge pop star, performing to adoring crowds and making 14 No. 1 singles.

I’m not kidding. And neither are “Better Man” subject Robbie Williams nor the film’s director Michael Gracey. This rise, fall and very fast 12-step recovery saga of the English singing sensation few Americans know presents Williams as a CG chimpanzee.

It's not that the film's subject — bad boy pop star Robbie Williams — is offensive by any means, though his wry and self-effacing humor might not appeal to audiences with a low tolerance for that particular British register.

If it’s true that your age freezes the day you become famous, then the British pop star Robbie Williams is stuck at 16. So he says near the end of “Better Man," the biopic he