Piece by Piece

You might think that Pharrell Williams is too young to have his own documentary biopic. I did too, until I saw PIECE BY PIECE. This is an animated LEGO portrayal of Pharrell's life and career, which is the most "Pharrell" thing he could do: defying genres as a person and with his music. I've only known him as a musician, but he's done so much more as a producer. This movie also shines a light on what music producers actually do. It opened my eyes to just how many huge songs Pharrell and his band The Neptunes had a hand in creating. To name-drop some artists: Gwen Stefani, Kendrick Lamar, Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Busta Rhymes, Jay-Z, Pusha T, Missy Elliott, and even Snoop Dogg, who has a very funny joke in this. This movie is directed by Morgan Neville, who won an award for the documentary 20 FEET FROM STARDOM. He does a great job detailing the ups and downs of life. One of the more fascinating aspects of this is how it depicts the way Pharrell listens to music. He has synesthesia, where he can actually see colors in his head while listening to music. This movie has lots of fun small details, due to the LEGO aesthetic. One thing I didn't expect to see is the portrayal of loss, especially not the Black Lives Matter movement. Pharrell didn't want to make just another regular biopic, it's definitely a breath of fresh air that is much more than just a gimmick. Imagination is such a powerful thing. This is a testament to self-belief and being uniquely yourself. If you're a Pharrell fan, go see it. If you're a LEGO fan, go see it. If you just wanna be happy, go see PIECE BY PIECE.

Well i had no clue that we owe so much to Pharrell Williams.

All the music he has been involved with making for 30 years !

Its a lego movie, not your usually type, but interviews with Pharrell and people in his life and who he worked with, all turned into lego in a fantastical type of way.

Its nothing short of excellent.

I learned alot i had no idea about the music industry, and how people work together, and that Pharrell has had his hand is some very successful music over the past few decades.

It is cleverly done, and the characters even talk about being in a lego movie.

By the end of the movie the whole cinema was hopping, clapping and singing along. It was mostly kids.

So this movie is just a documentary of Pharrell Williams life. But it is done amazingly well. The idea to make a documentary about a music guy in Lego is genius, cause it can visually show what someone is feeling.

The movie was executed well. The pacing is really solid and keeps you intrigued while keeping the story slow enough to process.

Acting is pretty great, Pharrell Williams did a good job but his mom is who stood out the most to me, said lines and made it feel like they were said in that time. Same with the director, his acting was so good and added a lot to the story.

Emotional impact is meh, it's an inspiring story and emotionally ig you can get mad at the bad buisness men.

The cinematography is beautiful. Gorgeous for a documentary. There is more than one great shot in this movie but one of my favorites is a shot from behind Pharrell Williams when he is watching the speakers as they play music and there is like lights coming out of them.

The music is incredible, sound design is pretty good but one of my favorite things about this movie is that it is integrating music constantly and using that to keep flow. It's so dope.

There is a theme of working hard and not quitting which is always good. But there is also some really unbiblical themes which makes me really mad and frustrated (easily one of the reasons I dropped it a rank)

I have watched this movie twice and it's enough, watching it 2 times is good but after that now I'm not super excited to see it.

Really great movie, just a disagreement with themes, seeing cursing in an animated movie isn't fun. But yeah great movie for the family is the kids are over the ago of 12.

Disclaimer: I am primarily a symphonic metal listener who has had very limited familiarity with this musical scene and have not heard of the lead until Happy became a breakout hit.

With that disclaimer aside, I must say that Pharrell Williams undoubtedly deserves credit just for taking a risk to do this style of film about himself - and Morgan Neville for taking him up on it. A risk which, to be clear, does not appear to have paid off commercially, as even though Piece by Piece apparently cost a surprisingly low $16 million, it still grossed a bit less than that - rather than the >2X which are normally thought to make a film's theatrical run profitable. (Though it still fared incomparably better than Better Man, which had taken a far greater and more expensive risk that would have required a miracle to be commercially successful, and such a miracle did not occur.)

The entire LEGO approach does in fact often result in some cool vistas we would not have seen otherwise. Any scene to do with water or space in particular (and there are quite a lot of them) looks stunning in this format. Since Neville obviously had the subject of the story in front of him (not having to reconstruct the story about a subject who had already passed away like many other biopics are forced to), all that was really needed was to pace it right - and it doesn't get there.

That is, in spite of being just 93 minutes long, Piece by Piece still manages to really noticeably drag in the middle. The film appears to cover something like 35 years of Williams' life - but after a certain point, it becomes hard to tell what happened when, after how long, and why it was even important. Specifically, after Williams becomes successful a second time (the montage of him blowing his first taste of wealth and success is an unquestionable highlight), the events become a kaleidoscope of him meeting important people (Snoop Dogg! Jay Z! His wife!) and it's unclear what it is actually leading up to.

Sure, a Williams documentary had to include Happy! As the capstone, and there presumably had to be some kind of a fall before that. That all occurs relatively suddenly and feels frankly belated. Given that this film which felt fine with a on-screen counter of William's earnings in the aforementioned montage, it could have had flashed years on the screen a few times to give us some basic grounding.

As for the message Williams is trying to convey....on one hand, "creativity is about mixing pieces" may sound offputting to some, but he is far from the only creator to have said the same, and those who consider themselves sui generis often just don't know enough about those who came before them (and may ironically end up doing exactly what was already done many times earlier.) I also appreciate him talking about the social context of Happy, or the deep inspiration Carl Sagan had on him.

On the other hand, Williams and Neville are clearly avoiding sharp edges - even when it's not hard for the attentive viewers to spot them anyway. Williams talks about the inspiration he's taken from Sagan in the same breath as he praises the role of local church - and yet, Sagan himself didn't just talk about the wonders of the universe but was also the author of "Demon-haunted World", a work deeply critical of any religion. This is just one of the contradictions the two aren't even really trying to square.

In the same vein, the film is honest enough to acknowledge that Williams started out in this scene in large part due to the interest local police had taken in music as a way of keeping the youth out of trouble - and yet, the fighter jets roaring above Williams' neighbourhood are only treated as an uncomplicated Cool Thing - and not as an extension of the same system which often privileged hard power ahead of the prosperity for all Americans.

Likewise, BLM protests of 2020 do get a mention, with Williams speaking with pride of the motivating power of his song. The immediate aftermath of those is not discussed - even though by the time the film finished production, a strong case could already have been made that the backlash to protests had more lasting impact than the protests themselves.

In all, this is ultimately a flawed experiment. One still more interesting than many other films - yet also frustratingly distant from what it could have been.

Rating: 7.5 Overall, a pretty good movie that opens the possibilities of what stories we can tell through Lego Animation; but, it is basically a biased documentary on Pharrell Williams' life.

Direction: Pretty Good The direction on a macroscale is unique and interesting as they basically had a narratively driven documentary about Pharrell's life but told it through Legos, and used the Lego animation well to help paint the world and show Pharrell's imagination; the direction on a microscale feels like an interview-style documentary, though Pharrell is given space to work with and share his emotions; the storytelling is very similar to other documentaries, though told in a very meta, creative style

Story: Pretty Good The concept is really interesting as it is an interview-style documentary on Pharrell's life, but told through the lens of Lego animation; this movie opens the possibilities of what stories we can tell through Lego Animation; the plot structure follows many interview-style documentaries on a subject's life, but it puts a little too much weight in the wrong places that it feels like it runs out of steam towards the end; it is pretty unclear what is actually factual and what is made up for the movie; the present-day conflict between Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams makes the movie have somewhat of an awkward tension between the two characters; the character writing does not really do a great job at showing the ego of Pharrell because they mention it but kind of brush over it, but it does a good job painting how creative he was; the story feels a little biased because it was clear Pharrell had a big say in what was in this movie, and how his side was presented

Screenplay: Decent The dialogue is very meta and kinda pretentious at times, but besides that, it feels like any other documentary; the humor is pretty good, with them making a lot of jokes that push the rating limit; the symbolism is decent as the movie is a metaphor on how pieces come together to make bigger concepts and aspects of life, why they decided to make this movie with Legos; they try to have this political message towards the end of the movie, but there is barely any time left and they kinda just brush over it, so it felt like they had it just to have it without presenting any nuance; the foreshadowing is alright, but kinda predictable if you know Pharrell's life

Acting: Pretty Good Pharrell Williams: Pretty Good (He just plays himself as this is more of a documentary than a narrative; but it definitely shows his personality) Rest of the cast: Pretty Good (Really just interviews from people in Pharrell's life and people he worked with)

Score: Good Helped show Pharrell's personality, and incorporated many of his iconic themes and beats

Soundtrack: Very Good Basically, a Pharrell Williams Greatest Hits album, and it had different songs that influenced his childhood

Editing: Good

Sound: Good Incorporated both the music and Lego sound effects well

Animation: Great Loved the animation, as it opens up the doors for what stories we can tell with Legos

Pacing Pacing is not the best, as it feels like it places too much weight on his childhood and early days, that the movie runs out of steam towards the end

Climax The climax is not that well executed as the movie feels like it kind of runs out of steam towards the last 20 minutes; but there is some closure

Tone The tone is very documentary in style, with Lego animation flavors.