In the current cinematic landscape, it takes quite some effort to make a music biopic or documentary that even remotely stands out. This year so far, two of the top 20 films at the British box office have both been music biopics (Bob Marley: One Love and Back to Black) and we have the Bob Dylan biopic, featuring Timothee Chalamet, still to come. The news that Pharrell Williams was to add to this influx of biopics was not particularly interesting. The news that it would be a fully Lego-animated documentary on the other hand…
Helmed by Oscar-winning documentary maker Morgan Neville, Piece By Piece tells the narrative of Pharrell Williams (otherwise known as Pharrell), tracking his life as a child into his early production stardom as part of The Neptunes into his career as a solo artist. It’s all very by-the-book, linear documentary filmmaking, with the exception that everything is animated in the style of The Lego Movie. This was a fantastic decision on the part of Neville and Pharrell. The animation gives the film so much life that would otherwise be completely absent.
The film opens with Pharrell narrating his obsession with water, narration that on its own would be rather stale, but, with the addition of a colourful animated Atlantis where Pharrell transforms into a fish, it takes on a much more interesting perspective.
This opening perhaps sets the bar too high, with moments of more abstract visual flair. Much of the film animates what would normally be archival footage, which are very grounded scenes but elevated through the gimmick. Even the talking heads appear as Lego figures, which doesn’t sound like much but it’s hard not to enjoy seeing the Lego form of Kendrick Lamar, Pusha T, or Gwen Stefani. There’s also a barrage of little visual gags done with the animation throughout that elevates the scenes they occur in every time.
What holds the film back is that behind the visual flair is a stock standard biographical documentary about Pharrell Williams. It follows every beat you would expect it to, the childhood obsession with music, the elderly relative who encourages them, the rise to success, the struggles of fame, back to a triumphant ending with him on top of the world. Pharrell has spoken in interviews that he wanted to make the film “his own way”, to really push outside the box. This brings us to the Lego idea, which he was inspired by, but doesn’t seem to extend to too much creativity in the actual storytelling department.
Even within this very standard archetype of a biopic, the film struggles to construct a narrative with the peaks and troughs it tries to show when we get to the inevitable struggle part of the narrative. The conflict the film shows us is a group of grey Lego businessmen showing up and shepherding Pharrell into making bad decisions and abandoning all his friends – the people at fault for this are just referred to as ‘them’. Rather than the emotional climax of the film, it just feels like a contrived conflict that sees Pharrell putting the responsibility for any decisions he made in this era onto some undefined anonymous force.
The resolution to this also feels strained. The big return to the success segment largely focuses on him making his inescapable smash hit ‘Happy’ for the Despicable Me 2 soundtrack (complete with Lego Minions). Certainly, for Pharrell, this is a commercial return to success, but the song doesn’t exactly strike a satisfying emotional note.
The other success the film places at the end is Pharrell’s involvement with Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Alright’, a song which became an important protest anthem particularly surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement. This certainly feels more significant than the release of ‘Happy’, but it still doesn’t play particularly well. You could be forgiven for believing that Pharrell was the song’s driving force just from watching the film. Kendrick Lamar delivers about one sentence of an interview, and the fact that Pharrell was one of two producers is not noted. All scenes of him making the song show Pharrell somewhat undeservedly as a lone creative mastermind, with Kendrick’s involvement coming from some serendipitous encounter with Pharrell’s genius.
This is a problem that continues with the film’s depictions of The Neptunes, the duo Pharrell was a part of alongside Chad Hugo that spawned many of the biggest hits of the 2000s. Hugo appears in the film and Pharrell does give him credit in the early parts of the film, but he is soon left to the side. It’s hard not to connect this to the fact that Hugo filed for legal action earlier this year after Pharrell filed for sole ownership of the trademark for The Neptunes. This context just leaves the film’s narrative feeling like a bit of a puff piece.
The documentary aspect of the film is at its best when recounting the making of Pharrell and Hugo’s, greatest hits. These scenes fully utilise the animation by representing the music in colour, reflective of Pharrell’s synaesthesia, as well as having a very fun roster of superstar musicians talking about meeting Pharrell. Highlights of these are Missy Elliot and Pusha T, both of whom went to high school with Pharrell and Hugo, as well as Snoop Dogg giving a particularly charismatic interview which opens with him ringing Pharrell asking him “what he wants [him] to lie about”.
Despite my frustrations with the film’s structure and narrative, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a good time with it. It’s always fun to hear the stories behind iconic pieces of music and the film does deliver in that department. But more than anything it comes down to the animation, I cannot overstate both its charm and how much it elevates an otherwise subpar film. This approach already seems to be setting trends – we recently got the announcement of a horrific-looking Robbie Williams biopic, where he’s represented by an uncanny CGI monkey. While I would rather they keep that one in the vault, perhaps the stylistic innovation on display here will do some good in livening up a very dull genre of film.
3/5
