‘Piece By Piece’: Review

Dir: Morgan Neville. US. 2024. 93mins 

The musical genius of superstar producer Pharrell Williams is on full display in Piece By Piece, a clever, unconventional nonfiction biopic told through animation, with the participants in the style of Lego figures. Award-winning documentarian Morgan Neville (20 Feet From Stardom) aims for a a cheeky, crowd-pleasing twist on the typical snapshot of an inspirational artist and the picture’s clear highlights are the behind-the-scenes tales of how classic tracks like ‘Drop It Like It’s Hot’ and ‘Alright’ were made. By comparison, though, the 51-year-old visionary fails to leave much of an impression himself.

As Neville has concocted a family-friendly affair, he is required to censor many of the songs’ explicit lyrics

Piece By Piece opens in the US on October 11 through Universal before closing the London Film Festival (it hits UK cinemas on November 8). Williams has been a force in the pop and rap worlds for more than two decades, fashioning chart smashes for everyone from Justin Timberlake to Jay-Z and No Doubt  — and that’s to say nothing of his own chart-topping, Oscar-nominated solo song ’Happy’ from Despicable Me 2 — so there should be sizable interest in this biopic. (Helping matters is the fact that several of the icons he has collaborated with, including Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar and Timberlake, appear as Lego-fied talking heads.) 

The film recounts Williams’ humble origins growing up in the Virginia projects, and his growing interest in performing and songwriting – a desire fortified when he met like-minded classmate Chad Hugo. Forming the collective The Neptunes, the duo initially struggle but, led by Williams, they soon establish themselves as in-demand producers for hip-hop luminaries. Eventually, though, Williams dreams of working on his own, which causes him to question his motivations while battling the fickleness of the record industry.

Early on, Williams says he likes thinking outside the box, and the Lego animation style reflects his desire to avoid being the subject of a traditional documentary. That said, there is an amusing tension throughout the film; as Neville has concocted a family-friendly affair, he is required to censor many of the songs’ explicit lyrics. As a result, Piece By Piece is a squeaky-clean picture in two ways: the hits have been shorn of obscenities and the more controversial elements of Williams’ life are overlooked. (For instance, he was successfully sued by the late Marvin Gaye’s family, who claimed that 2013’s ‘Blurred Lines’, the no. 1 hit he co-wrote and produced, infringed on Gaye’s ‘Got To Give It Up’.) On occasion, Piece By Piece coyly acknowledges that tension as we watch these Lego characters re-create conversations between Williams and hip-hop artists, their raw language obviously edited.

Neville, who won an Oscar for his 2013 backup singer documentary 20 Feet From Stardom, has made several films about musicians and, while this animation lacks the visual wit of The Lego Movie, there is a looseness to the proceedings that emphasises Williams’ boundless creative energy and charisma. But at just over 90 minutes, this glossy film rushes through its predictable narrative arc, shortchanging what is meant to illustrate Williams’ personal growth once he experiences wild acclaim and, later, succumbs to arrogance and poor creative decisions.

The banality of Piece By Piece’s trajectory is only worsened by the trite observations Williams and others make about the dangers of fame and the importance of being true to yourself. This is especially apparent during the picture’s final segments, which fail to illuminate why ‘Happy’, his ode to positivity, was such a meaningful song for him — and then, soon after, how the pain of the Black Lives Matter movement inspired his work on Kendrick Lamar’s 2015 anthem ‘Alright’. These potentially sombre glimpses into Williams’ inner life come across as glib and — in the case of BLM — almost insultingly superficial.

Fans simply wanting to revisit the producer’s greatest hits might be satisfied, and the vibrant animation matches the propulsive electricity of his music. While Neville skimps on details about the origins of these tracks, Piece By Piece certainly reminds the viewer just how many smashes Williams has authored over the years — in particular, the first decade of the 21st century, when his risk-taking productions were the gold standard for pop music. But the artist’s musical wizardry only belies what is otherwise familiar about Piece By Piece. For all its breezy animation, the film can’t match the vividness of its subject.