Piece by Piece

Director Morgan Neville, who brought us the film “20 Feet From Stardom” has undertaken to tell the story of the life and work of Pharrell Williams, a phenomenal pop music producer and vocalist who has created countless hit records. Their new film–Piece by Piece–is an animated LEGO movie, and from what we can tell from the trailer, it will be hilarious.

Pharrell has created music for hit animated films such as the Despicable Me franchise, so it’s no surprise that several of Pharrell’s hit songs provide the soundtrack for this trailer. From 0:01-0:09 as we see and hear LEGO Pharrell talking to LEGO Morgan Neville discussing the film concept, a funky instrumental shuffle groove is heard; this could be new music written for this film. Over the studio’s title card at 0:13 we hear the count-off for Pharrell’s massive 2013 hit song “Happy.” LEGO-ified treatment of that song’s music video shows Pharrell walking down an alley with bow tie and cowboy hat. The track continues as Pharrell’s voiceover narrates his childhood search for identity.

After he discusses early rejection, a LEGO needle drops at 0:26, transitioning into “Get Lucky,” Pharrell’s 2013 collaboration with Daft Punk. The psychedelic 70s-inspired LEGO animation depiction of Pharrell falling in love with music suits the mood of this track perfectly.

At 0:54, after a montage showing LEGO Pharrell learning to play drums, we pivot to Wreckx-N-Effect’s 1992 track “Rump Shaker.” This song was one of Pharrell’s early songwriting credits, and we see LEGO Pharrell step up to the mic in the studio and offer up freestyle raps from Teddy Riley’s second verse of that track.

At 1:01 we pivot to the 2002 song “Rock Star,” from Pharrell’s funk rock band N.E.R.D., as the visuals on stage evoke the high school gym where that song’s music video takes place. Showing how pop music’s biggest stars begin to take notice of Pharrell’s talents, we have a montage from 1:06-1:12 where LEGO Snoop Dogg, Gwen Stafani, Justin Timberlake and others are seen listening to Pharrell’s music and asking, “who did that?”

I appreciated the clever black and white LEGO Frankenstein “It’s alive!” moment at 1:13 to represent Pharrell’s subsequent meteoric rise to superstardom. This sets up a clever transition at 1:18 as Pharrell begins making the clicking vocal sounds which came to be used throughout the intro and outro of Snoop Dogg’s 2004 mega-hit song “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” in which Pharrell features as producer, co-songwriter, and vocalist. And that is exactly where the story goes next. At 1:23 LEGO Snoop Dogg is singing the synth hook for “Drop It Like It’s Hot” as the song begins, then we see LEGO Pharrell and LEGO Chad Hugo—this duo are the successful music production team known as The Neptunes—tweaking the knobs and faders on a LEGO mixing console.

At 1:33 we pivot back to Pharrell’s mega-hit “Happy” as we have more voiceover narration from Pharrell, describing his uplifting and inspirational attitude about life. From 2:04 to the end of the trailer, the shuffle groove from the beginning of the trailer returns, over the list of stars who will be featured in the film and Pharrell’s reminder that “it’s gonna be a LEGO movie, bruh.”

This is a refreshing light and fun take on the famous-musician-biopic trend which has been underway for the past few years (for example, see our blogs on trailers for Back to Black, Tina, Whitney, Judy, Bob Marley: One Love, Zappa, Rocketman, and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, to name a few).

Piece by Piece hits theatres October 11.

— Jack Hui Litster