Andy Warhol imagined a future where everyone would be world-famous for 15 minutes — a prediction that has effectively come to pass, courtesy of TikTok and reality TV. So here’s a revised forecast: We now live in a time when everyone can (and a great many will) have documentaries made about them.
That may already be true for musicians, so it will surprise no one to learn that it’s “Happy” hook factory Pharrell Williams’ turn. What you probably didn’t see coming was the form, which is every bit as playful as his music. In “Piece by Piece,” no sooner does Williams sit for his interview with director Morgan Neville than the rapper-producer-entrepreneur muses, “What if we told my life with Legos?” You know, a fully animated brickfilm, à la “The Lego Movie,” whose real-life subject would be repped by a CG plastic toy, with inked-on cheekbones and the best virtual lighting money can buy.
Neville (who appears as a fuddy-duddy beige minifigure with a gray beard and glasses) chuckles nervously, as if to say: “That’ll never happen.” But if there’s one thing “Piece by Piece” wants you to know, it’s that Williams is frequently struck by inspiration that mere mortals cannot see. That’s how he makes music — via synesthesia, whereby the beat appears to him as vivid colors in his brain. That’s how he hatched successful lines of sneakers and skateboards and skincare and streetwear, plus the rare flop, like Q Qream liqueur.
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As Williams tells his music-savvy interlocutor (Neville also directed “Twenty Feet From Stardom”), going the Lego route is “the best way I can be my limitless self, without feeling weird.” God forbid a documentary subject feel weird when sitting for an interview. And yet, for those who know their “Lego Movie” lore, the choice makes a strange kind of sense — and certainly distinguishes this upbeat portrait from the oversaturated category of music docs.
Recall that in Lord and Miller’s 2014 blockbuster (which revolutionized the field of animated features but failed to score a nomination in the corresponding Oscar category), a totally unexceptional blue-collar minifigure is mistaken for “the Special”: “The prophecy states that you are the most important, most talented, most interesting and most extraordinary person in the universe,” he’s told.
In the world of “Piece by Piece,” that person is Pharrell Williams, whose nontraditional beat-making skills set the Virginia Beach-born prodigy apart — and whose positivity proves infectious. Underscored by fresh, neatly reworked versions of Williams’ signature hits (plus several introspective new songs), the movie makes it feel like everyone can enjoy similar success, no matter their background, so long as they apply themselves. In that sense, it would make useful viewing in many an American classroom, where its inspirational potential outweighs the shortage of obstacles in his story.
Williams was fortunate to have adults who recognized his potential at practically every step, from the grandmother who gifted him a snare drum to producer Teddy Riley, who opened Future Records across the street from Williams’ high school, where Timbaland and Missy Elliott were also students. Riley signed the Neptunes (Williams’ first group) after witnessing them at a school talent show, then put Williams to work freestyling his part on Wreckx-n-Effect’s “Rump Shaker” (as it happens, Lego rumps do not shake, and yet, Pure Imagination’s CG restaging of the video is still worth the price of admission).
No one could blame the hip-hop prodigy for being impatient. The movie turns his hunger into humor, as Williams hustles his way into record labels and A&R reps’ offices. It’s fun to see Jay-Z, Gwen Stefani and Justin Timberlake in Lego form, as Neville dynamically recaps the Neptunes’ contributions to pop music. Represented as bouncing blocks of color, Williams’ beats are hot commodities, launching more than a dozen Billboard Top 10 tracks for artists looking for a funky original sound. Appearing in a cloud of virtual marijuana smoke, Snoop Dogg describes how Pharrell “saw the fun in me” with “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” delivering the rapper’s first No. 1 hit.
So where’s the conflict? Williams’ solo career took longer to catch on than supporters expected — something the artist blames on arrogance, although immaturity seems to be the main obstacle to a kid who, according to Jay-Z, had “not a drop of street” in him. “You couldn’t tell me life wasn’t amazing,” Williams says, looking back on an upbringing others might consider disadvantaged. Today, as a husband and father, Williams has such an appreciative “everything is awesome” attitude, it’s hard to take the career setbacks as anything more than speedbumps.
Paradoxically, the Lego approach gives the film a far more imaginative visual range than traditional documentaries, even as it robs us of the thing we most want to see: human faces. Compared to Lego’s ultra-basic early stud-and-tube days, there are now custom pieces for nearly every purpose, from a scale-model Eiffel Tower to a random mention of E.T. And yet, those little yellow plastic heads and hands are much too limited to represent real people. The movie can only go so far in correcting that, supplying shades and facial expressions absent from the actual toy line.
While infinitely more difficult to produce, the Lego strategy can feel like a cheat at times — an indulgence that underscores the vanity aspet of the project. As producer and subject, Williams wants to be seen this way. Granted, the magic-hour-all-the-time “footage” looks terrific, and there’s meta amusement to be gleaned from all the CG-Lego substitutes the crew found for real-world people and props. Still, “Piece by Piece” looks entirely too slick to be seen as anything deeper than a spectacular branding exercise.
Williams clearly sensed the unique way that animation can amplify certain emotions, illustrating abstract ideas with pop-art visuals. He first dabbled in the medium with “Despicable Me,” for which he wrote the music. Now, in what amounts to the ultimate Lego trip, he sees both toons and the versatile building-block toys as a metaphor for infinite creativity.
the Lego Treatment in Bouncy Outside-the-Box Doc
Reviewed at Telluride Film Festival, Aug. 30, 2024. Also in Toronto Film Festival. MPA Rating: PG. Running time: 93 MIN.
Production: (Animated, Documentary) A Focus Features release and presentation of an i am Other, Tremolo production, in association with The Lego Group, Pure Imagination Studios, Tongal. Producers: Mimi Valdés, Pharrell Williams, Caitrin Rogers, Morgan Neville. Executive producers: David Lawrence, Shani Saxon, Jill Wilfert, Keith Malone, Joshua R. Wexler, Sanjee K. Gupta, James De Julio, Lesley Worton. Co-producers: Brent Palmer, Verky Baldonado.
Crew: Director: Morgan Neville. Writers: Morgan Neville, Jason Zeldes, Aaron Wickenden, Oscar Vazquez. Editors: Jason Zeldes, Aaron Wickenden, Oscar Vazquez. Music: Michael Andrews. Songs: Pharrell Williams. Animation director: Howard E. Baker.
With: Pharrell Williams, Shae Haley, Chad Hugo, Pusha T, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Missy Elliott, Kendrick Lamar, Teddy Riley, Gwen Stefani, Justin Timberlake, Rob Wallace
