Piece by piece: Failure on all levels [critique]

The story of Pharrell Williams' life, brought to life in Lego: the result is an unpleasant hagiography that piles on banalities.

What do you want from a documentary about a music star? Obviously not honesty (the artists, these great deceivers, etc.), but surely an insight into their talent, at least their vision. Piece by Piecea Pharrell Williams production recounting his life, attempts to pass off as an artistic vision (the film is made of bricks like The Great Lego Adventure and its derivatives) quite a series of commonplaces (when you don't know what to do, “you have to place your trust in God”, for example), while ignoring a lot of key moments in his career. Where are Britney Spears, Madonna, Shakira? Why blame the “marketers” for a pre-“Get Lucky” slump with Daft Punk? How can you not cringe when the speakers throw out outrageous things like “Pharrell is the only artist to have worked with fashion designers” or that “before him, there was no star hip-hop producer”? No mention of the trial following Marvin Gaye's accusation of plagiarism for “Blurred Lines” while the film repeats that “the best ideas come from the future, the bad ones from the past”? In short, a hell of a pile of propaganda where everything fits together as if by magic, even the drama of the loss of the grandmother placed just before the end, like in a banal blockbuster. The only scene to save? The very funny intervention of Snoop Dogg, in a haze of weed, replaced by “All Public Spray”. The only moment where the film really has fun with its form.

By Morgan Neville. With Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo, Jay Z… Duration 1h33. Released November 20, 2024