Singer/rapper Pharrell Williams as a LEGO man. He is sitting in a chair wearing a blue jacket with a red shirt.
Pharrell Williams in Piece by Piece | Focus Features

Piece by Piece Review: Everything Is Awesome in Pharrell’s LEGO Doc

A refreshing spin on music doc conventions

7 mins read

Piece by Piece
(USA, 93 min.)
Dir. Morgan Neville

 

Just when you think that music docs have hit every single been there, done that beat, someone busts out the LEGO. This absolutely original portrait of Pharrell Williams rebuilds music doc convention piece by piece. Oscar winner Morgan Neville (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, 20 Feet from Stardom) finds refreshing inspiration in Williams’ musing that it’d be cool to tell his story with LEGO.

Piece by Piece uses LEGO intuitively to reflect Williams’ philosophy that life itself is a lot like these toy blocks. People can build, rebuild, and create their environments. The use of LEGO, moreover, harnesses an idea that interviewee Gwen Stefani shares while considering Pharrell’s music. “How do you make something new out of something that already exists?” she asks.

Piece by Piece, story-wise, follows many music doc beats. There are stories of childhood, inspiring grandparents, humble beginnings, breakthrough hits, and moments of inspiration. But because it’s all told with LEGO, everything feels fresh. It has something old, something new, something borrowed, and even something blue. LEGO and documentary make a perfect marriage.

Moreover, LEGO affords Neville a degree of creative licence while interpreting Pharrell’s story. The director plays with the LEGO to create moments of magical realism. The film isn’t tied to talking heads interviews. LEGO Pharrell and other beings in the LEGOland of Virginia Beach join together in upbeat musical numbers. They fly through the air. It’s just an all-around good time—refreshing escapism rooted in a good story and authentic voices.

The LEGO also serves Pharrell’s story on thematic levels in ways that conventional vérité and interviews might not. The film considers how Pharrell has synesthesia and how this ability to visualise sound, or see in colour when dropping beats, influenced his pursuit of music. Coloured patches of light pop in the animation like lens flare as Pharrell sees the sounds and notes of music that inspire him. The visual energy shows how music helped him become grounded in school. The film shows how he found a path that fed his creative impulses while playing to his strengths.

Neville also builds something new with the LEGO as Pharrell outlines his early career. After making the band the Neptunes with Chad Hugo and winning a high school talent show judged by record producer Teddy Riley, Pharrell tells how he found his niche in the music biz not by performing, but by creating beats for other artists. Neville visualises these beats as personalised gems fashioned out of LEGO. As Pharrell outlines the significance of beats for songs like Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot” or Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl,” musicians and producers open Pharrell’s offerings. They discover a handcrafted beat fashioned just for them.

Piece by Piece zips through stages of Pharrell’s career. There’s a breezy sequence in which he tries to prove himself to one record label hotshot after another. The montage finds a fun parallel later when Pharrell’s the in-demand producer and he’s now juggling everyone who wants his signature. Along the way, LEGO likenesses of Timbaland, Missy Elliott, Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake, Snoop Dogg, and other big names join the party as Piece by Piece works its way to Pharrell’s career-high with the Oscar-nominated smash hit “Happy.” The film, like the song, is exuberantly and joyously fun.

The novelty of seeing these artists in LEGO form delivers from beginning to end. While LEGO movies certainly aren’t new with several block-busters (sorry) in the past decade, everything is awesome here. Piece by Piece avoids some of the nudge-nudge, wink-wink elements of previous LEGO movies that recycled sight gags with the little blocks. Instead, the documentary framework amplifies the humour as the LEGO pieces are drolly disproportionate with real-world scale. Coffee cups are bigger than characters’ heads! (One can only dream of such things.)

The elements of corporate synergy between Pharrell’s brand and LEGO’s brand admittedly may seem inappropriate in a documentary setting. But branding, like it or not, is the name of the game with music docs and celebrity bios these days. Neville keeps the story clean and concise, avoiding tougher moments that might not jive with the playful tone, but also generally doing away vanity check marks.

And while it keeps to a greatest-hits angle, Neville and Pharrell do acknowledge a “dark” patch in the musician’s career. Williams shares how producing brought commercial breakthroughs like making McDonald’s “I’m loving it” jingle, a personal best after he got fired from McD’s as a kid. But he admits that he ultimately cheapened his brand by lending his name and likeness to anyone who asked. It’s at least refreshing to see a portrait of a singer that isn’t basically behind-the-scenes marketing collateral for a new album. (The film, of course, has a soundtrack.)

Neville’s film is ultimately an upbeat and very smart tale about artistic inspiration, perseverance, and shaping a distinct voice to stand out in the crowd. Amid a sea of homogeneous music docs, Piece by Piece does exactly that. It’s an inspired consideration of the involved and engaged process of building one’s artistic voice brick by brick.

Piece by Piece opens in theatres Oct. 11.

Read more about the film in our interview with Morgan Neville.

Pat Mullen is the publisher of POV Magazine. He holds a Master’s in Film Studies from Carleton University where his research focused on adaptation and Canadian cinema. Pat has also contributed to outlets including The Canadian Encyclopedia, Paste, That Shelf, Sharp, Xtra, and Complex. He is the vice president of the Toronto Film Critics Association and an international voter for the Golden Globe Awards.

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