Piece by Piece (2024) review

Dir. Morgan Neville

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★½

We’ve arrived at a point in time where music from the 1990s and 2000s has become “classic” enough to warrant assessment. We’ve also been long past the point of needing music biopics to be more than overstuffed, cookie-cutter dramas ostensibly designed to boost a late artist’s streaming numbers and record sales.

Piece by Piece delivers both with boundless creativity and dimensional spectacle. What else would you expect from a story about Pharrell Williams done by the man himself? The perennial hitmaker’s story not only dazzles visually, but is filled with lessons about anxiety, perseverance, and the importance of gratitude.

This is the fifth theatrically released LEGO movie since 2014, and the first since The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part in 2019. The time-off was necessary. After Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s inspired picture kicked off the trend, the formula quickly became tired and overstuffed with pop culture references among countless zingers. If a meaningful revival was going to take place, it needed someone like Pharrell and documentarian Morgan Neville (20 Feet from Stardom) to reinvigorate the concept of using LEGOs to tell a story that was equal parts engaging and imaginative.

So, Pharrell gathered his friends, family, and various collaborators over the past few decades to create Piece by Piece, which combines extensive interviews with a dramatization of Pharrell’s rise from a spunky kid in Virginia Beach to the hottest super-producer this side of LA.

Why LEGOs, you might ask? Pharrell, who narrates the film, explains that he has an intense connection with the iconic building blocks. His idea is that everything we humans create already exists as a product of the universe; therefore, the pre-existing blocks serve as both the foundation and the architecture of his personal story. He also elaborates on the concept of “synesthesia,” the ability to process music visually, a metaphysical concept he’s felt since a child. It’s this idea that both him and Neville weave through Piece by Piece as they make the rhythms of Pharrell’s generation-defining production and instantly recognizable hits pulsate with gorgeous visual style, be it in fluttering streams of pastel-colored animation or more explosive, psychedelic touches.

It’s as imaginative as it is lightly absurdist, such as when Pharrell recalls working at McDonald’s and subsequently getting fired for eating too many McNuggets. He brings backpacks full of LEGO McNuggets to his classmates/collaborators Chad Hugo, Missy Elliott, and Timbaland; by “McNuggets,” I mean light-brown colored 1×1 LEGO studs, the smallest piece in the vast assortment of blocks.

On the surface, and from the trailer, it’s fair to wonder for whom Piece by Piece was made. It’s pretty clear early on that this is a film that’s made for everyone from children to full-grown adults who remember Pharrell’s production on Gwen Stefani’s “Hella Good” and his buttery vocals on Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” livening up any function. When Snoop Dogg makes an appearance, accompanied by wafting white smoke, Pharrell and Chad are quick to use an aerosol can of “PG Spray” that both makes them lucid and cleans up the language. It’s the rare joke that proves humorous for kids and charmingly irreverent for adults.

One does wonder if the kid-friendly rating and approach curbed the story from revealing some of the darker points in Pharrell’s ongoing musical journey. The only real conflict ushered in involves Pharrell suffering from an identity crisis post-“Frontin’,” questioning whether or not he truly wants to become an artist as opposed to a full-time producer, and later suffering from a creative burnout, namely when he tries to make some songs for “radio” and others for “the ladies.”

Pharrell’s story is one of personal growth; one that shows the value of hard work and experimentation. One of the most underrated traits in a person is curiosity. Pharrell’s a man guided by the winds of his own zeal, and his desire to fearlessly play in the sandbox of his chosen artform could provide parents with teachable moments for their own children. The absence of a large, external conflict gives way to watch Pharrell fine-tune his craft, continue to grind, and keep his childhood friends close-by through every stratospheric breakthrough he experiences. The whimsical Piece by Piece is such an artfully made film that it demands multiple viewings not merely for its gorgeous animation but its important messages.

My review of The LEGO Movie
My review of The LEGO Batman Movie
My review of The LEGO Ninjago Movie
My review of The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part

Voiced by: Pharrell Williams, Morgan Neville, Gwen Stefani, Missy Elliott, Chad Hugo, Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Jay-Z, Busta Rhymes, Pusha T, Snoop Dogg, N.O.R.E., and Kendrick Lamar. Directed by: Morgan Neville.