As a music producer, singer-songwriter/rapper, and serial entrepreneur with a career spanning three decades and two centuries, Pharrell Williams's genre-redefining contributions to American pop culture can't be fully explored, evaluated, or even quantified in a standard ninety-minute documentary. The bio-doc based on his life and career, Piece by Piece, is everything but standard.
Along with his childhood friend, frequent collaborator, and business partner, Chad Hugo, and their collaborative nom-de-duo, the Neptunes, Williams has produced or contributed music for artists ranging from Britney “Princess of Pop” Spears to Justin “Prince of Pop” Timberlake, rap legends Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, and Busta Rhymes, rock royalty Gwen Stefani, and the "Queen of Latin Music," Shakira.
And that’s just a taste of Williams’ unmistakably singular 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 an easily recognizable, global superstar. Going two for two the same year, Williams collaborated with Daft Punk and Nile Rodgers on the earworm-worthy “Get Lucky,” solidifying his Cooler-Than-Cool status with electronic music fans and clubgoers alike.
Since then, Williams has been almost everywhere music-wise, Williams's name has appeared onstage as a singer-rapper or as a behind-the-scenes producer, repeatedly expanding and redefining the boundaries of American popular music and culture. Add to that Williams's uniquely idiosyncratic public personality, and a bio-doc all but seemed a formality.
It wasn’t a question of if then, but when and in what format Williams and his career would receive the bio treatment. 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 Piece by Piece, an otherwise conventional, edge-free, uncritical bio-doc, to be shot entirely in simulated Lego bricks, including Williams, Neville, and a cavalcade of musical artists depicted as minifigures.
Bookended by a one-on-one interview between minifigures of Williams and Neville, Piece By Piece almost immediately segues into Williams in chilled-out voiceover mode as he describes growing up in a housing project near the Atlantic Ocean in Virginia Beach, Virgina. Born to working-class parents, Williams spent most of his preteen and teen years 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 most inspired scenes, Neville and his animation team at Pure Imagination Studios 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 to no insight into Williams the individual that lightly skimming a handful of articles online or Williams's Wikipedia entry can’t convey in a fraction of the time. Despite its deliberate unwillingness to critically examine Williams the person or delve deeper into any missteps, Piece By Piece pushes those concerns into the background whenever it goes into full-on musical mode, combining Pharrell’s earworm-worthy music with Lego's exquistively imaginative visuals.
Not unlike the recent, justifiably lauded re-release of the 1984 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.