PIECE BY PIECE Review: Colorful, Engaging, Surface-Deep Bio-Doc

As a music producer, singer-songwriter/rapper, and serial entrepreneur, Pharrell Williams has been a part of pop music for the better part of three decades, offering his services as producer, singer, and occasional rapper.

Along with his longtime friend, collaborator, and business partner, Chad Hugo, and their collaborative outfit, the Neptunes, Williams has produced or contributed music for musical artists ranging from megastar Britney Spears to onetime “Prince of Pop” Justin Timberlake, rap legends Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, and Busta Rhymes, rock royalty Gwen Stefani and Latin crossover artist Shakira.

And that’s just a taste of Williams’ unmistakably original contributions to and influence on the American music scene. As a solo artist rapping and singing to his own beat(s), Williams’s infectiously hummable 2013 song on the Despicable Me 2 soundtrack, “Happy,” turned him into a pop-culture star. The same year, Williams collaborated with Daft Punk and Nile Rodgers, “Get Lucky,” solidifying his Ultra-Cool Dude status with electronic music fans and clubgoers alike.

Whether his name has appeared up-front as a singer-rapper or as a behind-the-scenes producer, Williams has been almost everywhere music-wise, helping to expand and redefine the outer boundaries of pop music. Add to that a singularly eccentric personality, and a bio-pic or bio-doc seemed like a formality.

It wasn’t a question of if, but just when and in what format. Except for director, co-writer, and co-producer Morgan Neville (20 Feet from Stardom, Best of Enemies, Won't You Be My Neighbor?) and Williams himself, no one expected the result, an otherwise conventional, edge-free bio-doc filmed entirely in simulated Lego bricks with Williams, Neville, and a cavalcade of music stars depicted as minifigures as they review Williams’ storied music career in roughly chronological order.

Opening with a one-on-one interview between Williams and Neville, Piece By Piece segues into Williams in chilled-out voiceover mode as he describes growing up near the Atlantic Ocean in Virginia Beach, Virgina. Born to working-class parents, Williams spent most of his youth in a tightly knit, music-centered community. Still, Williams never felt fully comfortable, seeing himself as something of an outsider, singularly obsessed with music in a way few were in his community.

In one of Piece By Piece’s more inspired scenes, Neville and his animation team turn Williams’ rhapsodic description of synesthesia, the ability to see music in lights, colors, and patterns into a wondrous, awe-inspiring display. It’s also meant to highlight Williams’ uniqueness (i.e., genius), all but foreshadowing the future success awaiting Williams nearby, starting with a new record studio owned and operated by uber-producer Teddy Riley literally across the street from the high school Williams and Neptunes co-founder Chad Hugo attended at the time.

From there, it’s the not unfamiliar rise (and rise) of Williams into the music superstar he was destined to become, minus a few, temporary setbacks, more mainstream success, an occasional stumble (the Robin Thicke-fronted “Blurred Lines” and the multi-million-dollar copyright infringement suit that followed slips by unmentioned), and ending where it began, with Lego Williams and Lego Neville relaxing in chairs across from each other, bathing wistfully in the feel-good emotions related to Piece By Piece’s nostalgic, memory-filled journey. Unsurprisingly, Williams repeatedly expresses his presumably sincere appreciation for the well-compensated life he’s led in and outside the music business.

Ultimately, Piece By Piece offers little insight into Williams that skimming a handful of articles online or Wikipedia can’t convey in a fraction of the time. For all its unwillingness to critically examine Williams himself, however, Piece By Piece soars when it combines Pharrell’s earworm-worthy music with Lego visuals.

Not unlike the recent, justifiably lauded re-release of the Talking Heads concert film, Stop Making Sense, members in the audience, young and old alike, will find themselves eager to slip unnoticed into the aisles of their local movie theater and, however briefly, move themselves through dance.

Piece by Piece opens today nationwide, only in movie theaters, via Focus Features.