“You take it apart, then you put it back together piece by piece.” That, in a nutshell, is why Pharrell Williams was inspired to do his biopic completely in the animated world of LEGO.
Turning the standard music-oriented documentary life story on its head, Williams enlisted Oscar and Grammy-winning documentarian Morgan Neville (20 Feet From Stardom, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?) to direct and conceive a format that would bring the uber-creative life of Williams to a happy place cinematically. Surprisingly, it brings a freshness and originality to a docu format that makes it feel all new again.
In a way that actually is standard in biopics, the basic bricks of Williams’ life are told in linear fashion with the first part taking place as he was growing up in the projects of Virginia Beach. A little bit of an outcast, not quite blending in with other kids, but finally finding his mojo, he meets Chad Hugo in a high school music class, where the beats of their collaboration took hold, leading to talent shows and discovery by manager Teddy Riley who signs them to a contract, taking their group The Neptunes and their producing career to heights he couldn’t have imagined. Neville is himself seen in LEGO form interviewing Williams about all of this, and specifically on the star’s neurological disorder called Synethesia, which allows Williams to see music in vivid colorful images. That alone frees up both star and filmmaker to also bring the iconic songs to life in animated form that makes this not just a biopic, but a gorgeous musical fantasia.
The story beats count for a lot as we learn of the genius of Williams not just through his studio interview with Neville, but also numerous colleagues and collaborators, including Gwen Stefani, Jay Z, Missy Elliott, Pusha T, Justin Timberlake and more. One splendid sequence takes us through the creation of ‘Drop It Like It’s Hot’ with a generous slice of Snoop Dogg. There’s also all those other hits Williams and Hugo produced for themselves and others, notably Stefani’s ‘Hollaback Girl’ up to his break from The Neptunes and Hugo into a solo career with a huge hit, ‘Frontin’ (featuring Jay Z), a fallow period, countless hits as producer and artist. The success is dizzying, even in brands Billionaire Boys Club and Louis Vuitton, etc.
I particularly loved a sequence where the ultra confident never-say-no side of the budding artist shows him going overboard in meetings with record label executives who didn’t quite feel the vibe, but you can bet Pharrell Williams did, even as Riley tells him to tone it down. That self-confidence in himself, his deep knowledge of his own creativity and absence of limits is what defines him still, all the way up to the audacious idea of telling his life story as a LEGO movie.
The creation of his Oscar-nominated “Happy” is a joyous sequence with Williams expressing surprise that the song took off globally, but then was followed by a darker period in his life and music with the advent of Black Lives Matter and a more serious realization about the state of the world and his place in it.
Piece by Piece doesn’t let those darker aspects of life overwhelm its PG-rated purpose, which is clearly to inspire dreamers like him, let creativity run free, and use music to make our lives (and his) driven with purpose and joy. After all, complex and entrepreneurial as he may be, Pharrell Williams is the man who wrote ‘Happy’.
Piece by Piece leaves you with hope and a whole bunch of songs you will not be able to get out of your head. Is it a documentary? A biopic? An animated movie? A musical? A character study? You bet — and more. Williams and Neville have taken it apart and put it all back together to perfection.
Producers are Mimi Valdes, Williams, Neville and Caitrin Rogers.
Title: Piece by Piece
Festival: Telluride
Distributor: Focus Features
Director: Morgan Neville
Cast: Pharrell Williams, Snoop Dogg, Gwen Stefani, Jay Z, Missy Elliott, Pusha T, Justin Timberlake, Teddy Riley
Rating: PG
Running time: 1 hr 33 mins