The phrase "LEGO Pharrell Williams documentary" seems like a strange slurry of words blurted out mid-delirium, but in the hands of Won't You Be My Neighbor? director Morgan Neville, the concept proves wonderfully imaginative. Following the life of the music producer and fashion designer, Piece by Piece takes a paper-thin, overly flattering biography – as related by an often cryptic Pharrell – and turns it inside out. The result is an eye-popping union of subject and form.
It's seldom a good idea to have someone produce a movie about themselves, so a complete story Piece by Piece is not. However, it's a wonderful distillation of Pharrell's creative ethos, perhaps even in more ways than the “Happy” singer might realize. Early into its runtime, when a Pharrell minifigure sits down with a similar avatar of Neville – every interview subject retains their real voice, but appears in LEGO form – he floats the film's bizarre idea with surprising clarity. In his mind, music (like all art) is cobbled together from existing pieces, making the LEGO medium a perfect fit. And so, events from his childhood, his early struggles to break out as part of production duo The Neptunes, and his eventual solo success, all become delightfully animated vignettes.
At times, these are hilarious to watch – who wouldn't love seeing a LEGO re-creation of the raunchy music video for one of Pharrell's first songwriting hits, “Rump Shaker” by Wreckx-N-Effect? – though the film maintains a sense of sincerity throughout, especially during its dreamlike scenes of minifigs traveling the cosmos, in keeping with the Neptunes’ bouncy, futuristic sound. Bit by bit, what seemed like a silly idea starts to feel like the only way this story could have been told, from Pharell's childhood recollections of being drawn to bodies of water (hence he and producing partner Chad Hugo naming themselves after the Roman god of the sea), to his explanations of his synesthesia, a perceptual phenomenon that causes people to experience sound in the form of colors. Whether it’s the movement of ocean tides or music manifesting as light, Neville finds incredibly novel ways to use what are, at this point, visual hallmarks made familiar by multiple animated blockbusters.
Part of the reason that explaining the premise of Piece by Piece feels absurd is because a "LEGO movie" is an existing cultural concept, one that's been around since at least the 1970s (though it wouldn't be until the early 2000s that "brickfilm" would really catch on with amateur filmmakers) and arguably peaked with The LEGO Movie a full decade ago. There have been official LEGO movies since (Piece by Piece is the fifth), but their form has always been tied to the tangible; the joy of these animated adventures is breathing life and movement into physical toys. However, as if in conversation with the 2014 LEGO Movie – a film in which characters learn to think outside the box – Neville steps beyond the constraints of the form, and while he still follows the rules of moving plastic, he creates a movie distinctly about the ethereal, and the metaphysical.
Despicable Me was one of two movie soundtracks that shaped my taste in music, the other being Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Pharrell Williams produced the latter. The man has a blood oath with those Minions to record a new track for all mainline installments. But back then, I was hooked on Williams' infectious rhythms and rhymes. We're talking about knowing every song from that first film’s album by heart and then when Despicable Me 2 came out, I learned every one of those too. I even performed “Happy” at my high school talent show as the closing number. Whenever Williams was tied to a film soundtrack, I treated that album drop like a Beyonce or Taylor Swift event. Despicable Me, Dope, Hidden Figures, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, that time N.E.R.D. reunited for The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water. Peak Pharrell across the board. So it made sense when Universal announced that they’d use their new LEGO film rights to make a Pharrell documentary. As an artist with major career ambitions, he should have his origin story told through the block toy property. If only there were more dimensions to his CG brick character.
Told through a detailed interview with Morgan Neville, Pharrell chronicles his rising music production career as a kid from Virginia who went to school with Pusha T, Timbaland, and Missy Elliot. During his early days, he and his best friend Chad Hugo formed a duo called The Neptunes, working under Teddy Riley’s record company in the ‘90s to eventually making it on their own, working alongside Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, and bringing their pal Pusha T up with them. Told through LEGO bricks, Piece by Piece illuminates the artistry Pharrell Williams contributed to music throughout the decades and the myriad of emotions stirred by his tunes.
Piece by Piece is like letting a kid with a vivid imagination and an affinity for Pharrell’s works tell his story with LEGO bricks. And that kid somehow got the go-ahead to share it with the world. Even though that's not the case, since adults made this movie, it has a childlike creativity that gives this specific approach some weight.
Piece by Piece is told through a series of auditory interviews curated by Morgan Neville and subsequently crafted in a stylistic animated art style. There’s passion in its visuals and vivid illustrative techniques, rendering it as a tool and device rather than a gimmick. Music bio-docs and narrative biopics are too stale – a sentiment that probably got this production greenlit. The animation team at Pure Imagination Studios, which has worked on other LEGO-related projects, most notably The Simpsons’ “Brick Like Me” episode, delivers a spectacle under the supervision of animation director Howard Baker. They take full advantage of this to make Pharrell's story feel cinematic and vivid.