PIECE BY PIECE (2024) - Mark Reviews Movies

Piece by Piece, Focus Features

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 10, 2024

Piece by Piece isn't the first animated documentary by any means or measure, but it's certainly the first mainstream feature one that's animated in the style of building-block toys. The subject is the life and career of Pharrell Williams, who has written and produced music for himself and others that spanned genres and usually became big hits. Williams himself, it seems, is the reason director Morgan Neville's movie is, for one thing, animated and, for another, in this particular medium, because the musician doesn't think his story can be contained by or portrayed within the typical approach of a biographical documentary.

Someone probably should have reminded both the subject and the filmmaker that a movie is more than its style, for here is a pretty traditional biographical documentary in terms of structure and narrative. The story it's telling is nothing new, as the movie charts Williams' life from childhood and through the entirety of his career until this point. Despite some flashes of inspiration in the animation, though, the mere fact of the documentary's aesthetic form doesn't elevate the material beyond the usual.

It's also a bit of a burden on the story itself, since the technique makes it all feel oddly impersonal. The narrative opens with a scene of Williams' at home, talking to and playing with his infant child. The movements of the toy figurines and the camera suggest that Neville and his crew must have shot or used live-action footage of Williams and others, in interview segments and home movies and archival clips, as models for the animation.

We know that's definitely the case when the movie replicates music videos using the building-block sets, figures, and props, such as Gwen Stefani riding in a car while singing "Hollaback Girl" or a thorn-crown-wearing Kendrick Lamar standing on a stoplight for what would become his rap anthem "Alright." It's amusing, to be sure, even if scenes of protest come across as a bit trivialized by the animation.

Is that worth the really good joke of Snoop Dogg arriving in the movie? Apart from his music and charming personality, there's one particular thing the rapper is known for, and since this is an animated movie aimed at audiences of all ages, Neville and the animators have to come up with a kid-friendly reason Snoop Dogg's office is filled with smoke. They found a funny one.

The movie puts its style to good use, though, when it's telling Williams' story beyond the straightforward biographical details. Early on, the musician tells a story of how he first fell in love and became obsessed with music, sitting in front of the stereo in his family home in a housing project in Virgina Beach. A Stevie Wonder tune fills the soundtrack, and as the unmistakable bass line that starts "I Wish" crawls in our ears, the speakers emit shapes of colorful light. That's how Williams perceives music in his mind, and he imagines his devotion to the art is an attempt to keep chasing that sensation in new and exciting ways.

It's a great hook and excuse for the movie's existence as a piece of animation, and one wonders if a narrative feature, instead of a documentary, might have been the more appropriate storytelling mode for Williams' story. There are definitely scenes of pure fantasy and fantastical realism here that are only suggested by the interviews, such as a school talent show in which Williams and his long-time collaborator Chad Hugo are discovered by music producer Teddy Riley, who set up a recording studio neighboring the teens' high school. The more dream-like diversions, like a baby Williams swimming among an undersea world or our professionally-lost man drifting in space, are striking enough that they feel as if they belong in a different story.

That's mostly because the narrative itself is so by-the-books. Williams explains the course of his career, writing beats and riffs for an array of diverse musical artists and acts, gaining the reputation of a hit-maker in the industry, and finding himself chasing chart-topping success instead of following his heart. Other famous figures—or, better, figurines that look like them—appear, from the aforementioned Stefani and Lamar and Snoop Dogg, to classmates Missy Elliott and Timbaland (who's also Williams' cousin), to Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z, and to Busta Rhymes and Pusha T, who has a rather touching story about Williams saving him from a low point in his life by saving his best composition for an old friend.

In addition to the emotional distance raised by the movie's style, there's a narrative one, too. The story is in an obvious rush to hit the high points, breeze through the low ones in order to get at Williams' inspirational comeback, and fill the soundtrack with as many songs in Williams' repertoire as possible. He seems like a sincere man about his love for music, friends, and family, as well as his realization of his personal and professional shortcomings over the years, and maybe if we could actually see Williams in Piece by Piece, the movie itself might come across as sincere, too.

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