Arts & Culture

Piece by Piece
Where: In theatres
What: Movie, 93 mins.
When: Fri., Oct. 11
Genre: Rockumentary
Rating: NNNNN (out of 5)
Why you should watch: Oscar-winning documentarian makes wildly inventive film using Lego to tell the story of hip hop producer, singer and fashion mogul Pharrell Williams

OSCAR-WINNING documentary filmmaker Morgan Neville (20 Feet from Stardom [2013], Won’t You Be My Neighbour [2018]) inventively tells the story of rap producer, singer and fashion mogul Pharrell Williams — using Lego — for one of the most unique and satisfying films on view at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF)! This strange device is not a gimmick but an incredible tool for taking us “inside” Williams’ brain, and it allows the director to visually represent every essential step of Williams’ “rags-to-riches” journey, including the singer’s “ability” to see colours generated by music.

The film’s exhilarating colour pallet is reminiscent of Inside Out 2 and, in many ways, the film is just as joyful. Williams has a largely exhilarating rags-to-riches story that sees his music career kickstart as a teenager when a massive hip hop recording studio opens blocks from his Virginia Beach high school, a school that also produced Busta Rhymes and Missy Elliot, among others. When Williams’ band, which featured his beat producing partner Chad Hugo, wins a school talent contest sponsored by the studio, he lands studio time as a prize as well as a way inside the studio world ruled by owner-producer Teddy Riley. Williams and Hugo start delivering beats to Riley’s roster of acts as well as other emerging stars, from Pusha T to Gwen Stefani, and it’s all a rather joyous ride made all the more so by the Lego storytelling.

And of course, it’s a blast to see Jay-Z, Stefani and the rest rendered faithfully as Lego characters, none ever breaking “the wall” as audio from real-life interviews is illustrated through animation. Neville explained at the TIFF screening that Lego has strict standards for any Lego animation. No action can be taken that is not possible to actually replicate in Lego, so no shimmying or un-Lego-like moves from the stiff characters. Williams and crew used the production to pressure Lego to expand its skin tone colour palette to better represent BIPOC communities. Creating Lego-approved locs “that wouldn’t break” for Busta Rhymes proved a particular challenge.

Audience members were singing along and dancing in their seats at the TIFF premiere screening. What else would you expect from a film about the life of the guy who had a huge hit with a song called Happy from the soundtrack for Despicable Me 2? One of the happiest — and most inventive — films at TIFF or anywhere else this year.