I gotta admit — it’s a cute gimmick.
Piece by Piece, the documentary/biopic hybrid about superstar producer/rapper/singer/fashion designer/tastemaker/mogul Pharrell Williams, is a look at this man’s career, strictly featuring animated Lego material. (I’m kinda surprised it isn’t called The Lego Pharrell Movie.)
It’s a bold — some might say unnecessary — move for Williams to make a toy story out of his life so far. (It won’t be the craziest musical biopic we’ll get this season; U.K. pop star Robbie Williams plays himself as a CGI monkey in the upcoming Better Man. For real.) It might also be the first vanity project your kids dig more than you do. But Williams, being the staunch practitioner of materialism (whether it’s the philosophical belief or just a preoccupation with material items) that he is, crafts a magical, musical mystery tour in which fantasy and reality are not only blurred, but very textural.
Filmmaker Morgan Neville, who already has a proven track record getting amazing stories out of musicians (20 Feet From Stardom) and beloved media figures (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?), interviews Williams about his early days growing up in Virginia Beach, Va., when he realized he sees colors (known as synesthesia) when hearing music like Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish.” Although Williams considered himself something of a hood outcast (dude was a big fan of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos growing up), he still hung out with future stars Timbaland, Missy Elliott and Pusha T. He also became besties with Chad Hugo, his partner in hitmaking production duo The Neptunes.
Mostly consisting of footage (interviews, music videos, archival clips) reanimated by Pure Imagination Studios (the team behind many animated Lego projects), Piece is a colorful trip down memory lane for both Williams and the audience. Anyone who grew up in the early 2000s knows how omnipresent Neptunes-produced songs were, and Piece shows how the boys were there for everyone, from Britney to Busta. One sequence features Hugo and Williams in a recording studio, recording one artist after another by pulling a lever.
Jay-Z, Gwen Stefani, Snoop Dogg, Justin Timberlake and Kendrick Lamar are a few of the stars who show up in Lego form to talk about how The Neptunes supplied them with career-changing beats (which are shown here as literal, pulsating contraptions built by Williams). The funniest testimony comes from rapper turned Drink Champs podcaster N.O.R.E., who reminisces about the bump Williams and Hugo received after producing his hit “Superthug.”
Of course, since this is also a music biopic of sorts, we get the obligatory low moments — like when, after his grandmother died, a lonesome Williams started churning out mediocre songs for greedy-ass music execs. But we also get the eventual comeback-heavy third act, when now-family-man Williams finally becomes the pop star he always wanted to be, thanks to a chipper Despicable Me 2 soundtrack contribution turned infectious global phenomenon — “Happy.”
At one hour and 33 minutes, this is an obviously condensed version of Williams’ history. We don’t get into the messy stuff: his falling-out with “Milkshake” singer/protégé Kelis, that sordid “Blurred Lines” business with Robin Thicke, and Williams’ first solo album, which tanked (though I liked it). N.E.R.D., the rock-rap group he formed with Hugo and childhood friend Shay Haley, is barely mentioned, even though the soundtrack is padded with N.E.R.D. tunes. There’s definitely no mention of Pharrell working with Diddy, and we certainly don’t get into Williams and Hugo’s current nonexistent relationship. (Hugo is suing Williams for “fraudulently” trying to claim the Neptunes’ trademarks for himself.)
Williams and Neville are more about creating a whimsical, all-ages popcorn flick with highs and lows, rejection and redemption. (Even when Williams and Hugo meet up with Snoop and his crew, the room is cleverly covered in smoke from “PG Spray” cans.) It is telling that, in the movie, Williams says he wanted to do a Lego movie so he could break things down by tearing them apart “brick by brick, so it makes sense.” Since biopics are generally known to be partially fact-based and heavily embellished, with Piece by Piece, Williams finds the most eccentric, entertaining and, of course, playful way to tell if not the whole story, then at least his side of it.
