Pharrell Williams wears many hats in the entertainment industry. He’s a singer, songwriter, producer, rapper, fashion designer, influencer, mogul.
However, there once was a time when Williams lived in the projects of Virginia Beach with his parents and two brothers. He struggled in school and lacked direction, only connecting with his passion for music and a desire to be a star. When building Piece by Piece (2024), the LEGO-designed documentary/biopic of Williams’ life, both the artist and director Morgan Neville want you to know who Williams was before becoming Pharrell.
It’s easy to have preconceived notions about Piece by Piece going into it depending on your exposure to Pharrell’s music, but my initial impressions spawned out of questioning the film’s authenticity.
That’s not to say I don’t respect Williams as a musician or mogul – his impact on music and popular culture throughout the past four decades is undeniable. However, when constructing a documentary/biopic about yourself quite literally out of building blocks, there are a lot of questions worth asking.
With so much creative control over a project, the temptation to embellish is high. When creating a narrative, it can be challenging to give oneself justice while remaining impartial. When crafted out of LEGOs, much can be censored to appeal to your target audience.
Luckily, those concerns fade within the first ten minutes of Piece by Piece due to the film’s laidback tone, stylish appearance, and mission statement of professing hope to its core audience.
As gimmicky as it might seem on paper, the LEGO style serves the film well in examining key concepts of Williams’ life, particularly his positive spin on illustrating his battle with sound-color synesthesia – a condition that causes people to see colors when they hear certain sounds. Using the LEGOs themselves to build beats as part of the creative process is one of the film’s running highlights.
Director Neville, a key contributor throughout Piece by Piece’s narrative, does an excellent job of shepherding the film through Williams’ highs and lows, much like he did when building the direction for his previous efforts: the life-affirming Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (2018) and Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain (2021).
Neville is much more hands-on in Piece by Piece than in his past films, with a welcome, calming on-screen presence as he interviews Williams and his many collaborators, including cousin Timbaland, lifelong friend Pusha T, and industry giants Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake.
The film excels when Neville ushers the direction through Williams’ in-demand streak in the 2000s, popping in and out of collaborations with industry titans, none more entertaining than Snoop Dogg’s, featuring an in-joke so howlingly funny I dare not spoil it here.
While it was never a detriment to my 31-year-old experience, it’s worth noting that the documentary-style pacing might take some getting used to for younger viewers. In the 5 PM Thursday afternoon screening, there was only one child in the room and by the time the third act rolled in, she was fidgeting in her seat and ready to leave. However, the experience of one doesn’t define all–just know your little one’s mileage may vary.
Regardless, Piece by Piece not only marks a win for mainstream documentaries in new creative spaces but also for Lego animation as a means of telling different stories. The film never reaches the madcap, subversive highs of The LEGO Movie (2014), but what Piece by Piece lacks in animated unpredictability, it more than makes up for in its approach to establishing documentary norms in a new medium.
When animated documentaries are few and far between (the Oscar-nominated Flee (2021) is all that comes to mind), the use of the LEGO style for capturing asides made by interview subjects marks an opportunity for future projects. With the right direction and visualization, Neville and Co. show that anything is possible.
At the end of the day, though, Piece by Piece is at its best when it’s connecting the dots between pursuing and accomplishing your passions with a wide network of peers, especially for the audience of children (particularly children of color) with whom the message will assuredly resonate by the film’s end.
Hard work is often made more tolerable with friends by your side, and Williams’ ability to channel that fact as part of his life story makes Piece by Piece all the more gratifying of an experience.
Review Courtesy of Landon Defever
Feature Image Credit to Warner Brothers via The Hollywood Reporter