Out of the 180 new movies I’ve seen so far in 2024, “Piece by Piece” is definitely one of the 10 best. This is a documentary on the life and career of prolific music artist Pharrell Williams. And he wanted this doc to be entirely in LEGO, as he explains to Oscar winning director Morgan Neville (“20 Feet from Stardom”) in one of the film’s early scenes. The results are fantastic. Even if you’ve seen (and enjoyed) the previous LEGO animated movies, it takes a little bit to adjust to the use of LEGO in a documentary structure and interview format. And then the visuals go beyond your greatest expectations.
Pharrell passionately tells his life story — how he grew-up, got into the music business, didn’t have the right attitude early on, thought a lot of things were going to happen, but it took a longer for him to achieve the kind of success he really wanted. I love the life lessons “Piece by Piece” teaches. There’s a little bit of adult language in this PG-rated feature, but you should take the whole family to see it in theaters. Kids (in elementary, middle and high school) will get so much out of Pharrell’s story — about life, meaning something to other people and putting tons of energy into the work that you do. In this case, it’s music. “PBP” celebrates the power of music.
Visually stunning. It’s very interesting how the hefty LEGO pieces are used, as well as the types of scenes that we get, like in a traditional, live-action documentary. There’s dialogue, recreations, flashbacks and dreams. In other docs, some of these sequences may have briefly used hand-drawn animation to bring these thoughts and pieces of commentary to life.
Funny. Sharp. Self-aware in just the right ways. Goes at a lightning fast pace. This is a real treat.
LCJ GRADE: A-
Running Time: 93 min.