The folk behind this documentary about Pharrell Williams will, no doubt, be delighted to hear it described as peculiar. They have, after all, decided to tell his life story through the medium of computer-generated Lego. Everyone has the same stubby body. Everyone has painted-on hair. Fluids appear as a clutter of translucent bricks. You know the drill from Lego Batman.
The peculiarity, however, is how little Piece by Piece differs from the average pop hagiography. Morgan Neville, director of such fine docs as Best of Enemies and 20 Feet from Stardom, has interviewed all the expected celebrities: Gwen Stefani, Justin Timberlake, Missy Elliott, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg. Each confirms that Pharrell, producer, songwriter and performer, is both a genius and an eccentric. Hits such as Happy and Get Lucky are cut into the soundtrack. And then it is all rendered as Lego.
The format does generate a few nice innovations. We see the “beats” Pharrell devises as lumps of interconnected bricks. Those rhythmic components of hip-hop therefore take on a physical manifestation that speaks to their value as commodities.
Elsewhere, the Legoisation adds little to a story that hits all the usual tropes of the musical biopic. Pharell begins life as an ordinary kid in the projects of Virginia Beach. He and his schoolmate Chad Hugo form a musical partnership that eventually attracts the attention of the producer Teddy Riley, and they go on to release a series of groundbreaking LPs as Nerd (oddly underexplored here).
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Collaborations with Stefani, Snoop and Jay-Z make their name before, as is always the case in such stories, our hero hits hard times that invite reappraisal and reinvention. If you’re scratching your head, that apparently awful period comprised a brief lack of hits before Happy reconquered the world. Boo! and, indeed, hoo!
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Many will roll their eyes when Williams is praised for supposedly ground-breaking collaboration with luxury brands. But the real problem with this tolerably diverting film is that he isn’t really that interesting. He’s gifted in so many fields. He breaths out music as others breath out carbon dioxide. But he’s essentially an upstage boffin, not a downstage star like Beyoncé, Snoop or – an acknowledged influence – Stevie Wonder. Give us Lego Stevie now.
In cinemas from Friday, November 8th
