From The LEGO Movie franchise, to its network television competition series, to the popular LEGO video games and physical sets themselves, the toy company has proved that just about anything can be constructed with its pieces. The latest big project from LEGO is one of its most ambitious and out of the box: a LEGO documentary about the life of Pharrell Williams called Piece By Piece. The latest LEGO movie is certainly well imagined and constructed, but it also ultimately suffers from plastic toys being unable to tell a narrative with the same depth as live action.
Piece By Piece
Release Date: October 11, 2024
Directed By: Morgan Neville
Written By: Morgan Neville, Jason Zeldes, Aaron Wickenden, Oscar Vazquez
Starring: Pharrell Williams, Morgan Neville, Gwen Stefani, Kendrick Lamar, Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Busta Rhymes, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg
Rating: PG for language, some suggestive material and thematic elements
Runtime: 93 minutes
Just about everyone can recognize Pharrell Williams as the talent and voice behind big hits like “Lucky” and “Happy,” but he’s also one of the most influential music producers of the 21st century. He’s been behind a ton of mega hits from other artists like Nelly’s “Hot in Herre,” Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” along with other big songs from Jay-Z, Madonna, Justin Timberlake, Pusha T and Britney Spears. How did Williams become such a highly sought after name in the world of hip-hop and pop music? Piece By Piece tells his success story thus far in the format of a documentary.
Rather than showcasing the interviews with standard talking heads as a typical doc might do, the entire movie is told through Pharrell’s LEGO minifig narrating his life in an interview with the movie’s writer/director Morgan Neville. Neville is an Academy Award winning documentarian who made 20 Feet From Stardom and Won’t You Be My Neighbor along with delving into the lives of Anthony Bourdain and Mickey Mouse through other recent docs. It’s entertaining to see this format of filmmaking get the big screen treatment and be elevated by the incredible artistry LEGO pieces can bring to animation, but perhaps there’s some missing pieces left hidden on a carpet somewhere (just waiting to be stepped on).
The new LEGO Movie is very much a music documentary about Pharrell, and that never stops feeling random for the whole movie.
One imagines that there will be many families that will stroll into Piece By Piece simply because it’s a LEGO movie only to get very confused about sitting through a 93 minute film about the life and times of Pharrell Williams – who soundtracked a lot of raunchy pop music from the early ‘00s that’s fun to dance to. Piece By Piece is definitely trying to do two things at once: be an exciting LEGO movie and intriguing documentary about the music industry through Pharrell’s eyes; but because those two things have a tendency to be disjointed from one another, both aspects never totally reach the astronomical heights it hopes to. Unfortunately, that leads Piece By Piece to lean further into gimmick territory than it probably intends to, especially as Pharrell attempts to bring the narrative together by saying something to the effect that “life is like a LEGO set” early on.
Piece By Piece takes the approach of hitting all the major beats of Pharrell’s life thus far through a main interview of the man himself and other big music industry names – from where the artist got his start as a native of Virginia Beach to his skyrocketing fame in the early ’00s that had him rubbing elbows with all sorts of big names. Never does the LEGO movie become a narrative piece with dialogue like the other LEGO films we know and love because of it being tethered to the interview format.
Piece By Piece has a lot of fun with the creative liberties of the visual embellishment that takes Pharrell’s minifig deep under the sea and to the vastness of space, or turns Snoop Dogg to a LEGO dog. Even still, this collaboration between LEGO and Pharrell never completely ties together in a fully cohesive or deeply emotional way.
Piece By Piece finds imaginative ways to tell the story of Pharrell Williams’ rise as a prominent music producer with LEGO pieces.
Even if do you decide to check out the Pharrell Williams LEGO movie without a huge appreciation and respect for the influential figure, you’ll certainly learn more about how he got his start whilst being amused by the slew of famous minifigs that are part of his journey of fame that certainly had its ups and downs. But you’re going to be most dazzled by some of the unique ways into which the LEGO filmmaking team decided to tell Pharrell’s story with its pieces. It’s a ton of fun to see this segment of the hip-hop and pop industry get highlighted in the world of LEGO.
It is the cleverness of LEGO that is actually the most impressive element of Piece By Piece. From the start of the movie where a baby Pharrell LEGO is seen swimming underwater in Neptune’s kingdom in reference to his early hip hop group The Neptunes, it’s clear that this is a one-of-a-kind documentary that is breaking the mold in terms of how biopics and non-fiction can be approached in film. It’s charming to see Teddy Riley’s arrival to Pharrell’s hometown of Virginia Beach happen through a floating recording studio that comes down on the beach town. Or when Pharrell crafts himself a winning track to later sell to an artist, it is showcased through a glowing LEGO piece that feels like this magical thing that would not work as well or easily in live action.
As fun as it is, Piece By Piece loses some depth being packaged in LEGO.
When it comes to learning the process of a beloved musician, there’s something major lost when you cannot look into their eyes, sense the inflection of their voices as they hit a high note and note the deep emotion on their face as they recall the joys and pitfalls of their life. All these elements of Pharrell, which would have added depth to Piece By Piece, are lacking because we are looking at a minifig of him that tells the story of the whole movie. LEGO minifigs are cute and all but have a limited amount of emoting skills to showcase that can dull as the movie dives into Pharrell’s career.
The movie is a more sanitized telling of Pharrell’s life that is void of any of the true grime and messiness that can come and is associated with being a successful artist. Not to say the LEGO telling isn’t appreciated, but it perhaps could have been helped with just a taste of live-action that could have elevated it to a more grounded place. (The LEGO Movie memorably did this with Will Ferrell’s role). You might find yourself wishing there was a in-person cameo or two of Pharrell and his famous friends so your recollection of their story doesn’t solely live in your memory as pure LEGO form.
Piece By Piece is a solid effort to bring a true story from the music industry to the big screen in a way that is mainstream and more intriguing than your typical biopic, but the LEGO format has it more interested in playing with toys and dancing along through Pharrell’s life than finding the poignancy of other docs about breaking into the music industry.
