‘Piece by Piece’ Review: Pharrell Williams and an All-Star LEGO Lineup Tells a Life Story Too Neatly Clicked in Place | TIFF
The first question I, like many other people, thought about Piece By Piece was “Why is it in LEGO?” It turns out, via the opening of this film, it is because Pharrell Williams requested it himself. To him, music is like playing with LEGOs. You take a bunch of pieces that already exist, that everyone knows, and you build on top of them to create something new. Together with director Morgan Neville (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?), Pharrell attempts to make his documentary feel new by incorporating his rags to riches story (the part that we’ve all seen before) with LEGO animation.
And so we go through a tight rundown of Pharrell’s journey, from his upbringing in Virginia Beach to getting his first job at a record label to starting the Neptunes with Chad Hugo to working with popular artists and churning out bops. For a significant amount of the runtime, Piece By Piece plays like a Wikipedia article. Pharrell did this. And then he did that. And then he did that. Non-fiction documentaries can fall into this storytelling trap.
But the big piece missing here is a sense of challenge and obstacle. The film would bring in voices from the genre and music space – names like Pusha T, Missy Elliott, Timbaland, Gwen Stefani, Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake. Even Snoop Dogg will appear and get to be a literal LEGO dog. Much of their shared experiences and testimonies about Pharrell are interesting, if you’re ever curious about how they first met and how their collaborations came to be. But who’s going to say something negative about Pharrell? Much of Pharrell’s character flaws shown in the film are just boiled down to non-flaws like “I show my passion too openly” or “I’m too aggressive with my ideas.” It also doesn’t help when the voice of the film telling the story is also the film’s subject matter. Time and time again, I lost track of Morgan Neville’s storytelling voice and I kept seeing Piece By Piece as a vanity project for Pharrell Williams.
The most compelling section of the story comes from his low points, from Pharrell being stretched too thin at delivering business and song ideas to his relationship with his hometown once he has broken out and left it. Like many artists, Pharrell struggling with his purpose is the most interesting part of Piece By Piece, so much so that you’d wish it was a bigger, more essential building block of the film. It’s also good to see when a successful artist does everything he can to give back, either to his friends or to his community. It’s a series of familiar messages like “work hard” and “believe in yourself.”
Along the way, the film undoubtedly features stunning LEGO animation. Neville and his team of animators do an effective job of taking the plastic brick and using it to paint abstract ideas or emotional feelings. Songs are expressed through a kaleidoscope of color that wafts out of the speaker and overall the listener, in a similar vein to those colorful lines that appear in the beginning of Ratatouille when Remy tried biting a strawberry and cheese at the same time. Another favorite of mine is portraying a beat as some random glowy little LEGO contraption that bops on its own. Also if you ever wondered what classic music videos to songs like Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” or Britney Spears’ “I’m A Slave 4 U” looked like in LEGO form, they are in here. Sprinkled here and there are some terrific visuals that are very well represented by LEGO. Without a doubt, it elevates the visual experience.
And that’s kind of it with Piece By Piece. It’s made with love and good intentions, and you can tell that there are places where Pharrell is truly opening up about his feelings. But for a documentary that hits all the standard music biopic notes, this one feels very safe. And with our subject matter talking about himself alongside everyone else speaking for him and describing his accomplishments, everything feels a little too neatly clicked in place. It’s lucky that LEGO animation and a big heart can go a long way.
Grade: C+
This review is from the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. Focus Features will release Piece by Piece in U.S. theaters on October 11, 2024.
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