Movie Review: ‘Piece by Piece,’ a Very Odd Lego Doc about Pharrell Williams Snaps Together Somehow

 This image released by Focus Features shows lego characters voiced by Jay-Z, left, and Pharrell Williams, in a scene from "Piece By Piece." (Focus Features via AP)
This image released by Focus Features shows lego characters voiced by Jay-Z, left, and Pharrell Williams, in a scene from "Piece By Piece." (Focus Features via AP)
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Movie Review: ‘Piece by Piece,’ a Very Odd Lego Doc about Pharrell Williams Snaps Together Somehow

 This image released by Focus Features shows lego characters voiced by Jay-Z, left, and Pharrell Williams, in a scene from "Piece By Piece." (Focus Features via AP)
This image released by Focus Features shows lego characters voiced by Jay-Z, left, and Pharrell Williams, in a scene from "Piece By Piece." (Focus Features via AP)

A movie documentary that uses only Lego pieces might seem an unconventional choice. When that documentary is about renowned musician-producer Pharrell Williams, it's actually sort of on-brand.

“Piece by Piece” is a bright, clever song-filled biopic that pretends it's a behind-the-scenes documentary using small plastic bricks, angles and curves to celebrate an artist known for his quirky soul. It is deep and surreal and often adorable. Is it high concept or low? Like Williams, it's a bit of both.

Director Morgan Neville — who has gotten more and more experimental exploring other celebrity lives like Fred Rogers in “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain” and “Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in Two Pieces” — this time uses real interviews but masks them under little Lego figurines with animated faces. Call this one a documentary in a million pieces.

The filmmakers try to explain their device — “What if nothing is real? What if life is like a Lego set?” Williams says at the beginning — but it's very tenuous. Just submit and enjoy the ride of a poor kid from Virginia Beach, Virginia, who rose to dominate music and become a creative director at Louis Vuitton.

Williams, by his own admission, is a little detached, a little odd. Music triggers colors in his brain — he has synesthesia, beautifully portrayed here — and it's his forward-looking musical brain that will make him a star, first as part of the producing team The Neptunes and then as an in-demand solo producer and songwriter.

There are highs and lows and then highs again. A verse Williams wrote for “Rump Shaker” by Wreckx-N-Effect when he was making a living selling beats would lead to superstars demanding to work with him and partner Chad Hugo — Kendrick Lamar, Justin Timberlake, Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, Gwen Stefani, Missy Elliott and Jay-Z. All those superstars sit for interviews and have hysterically been depicted as Lego minifigures, right down to No Doubt's Adrian Young's mohawk. (Take my money, Lego.)

We also learn something about his wife, Helen, and his anguish over being a solo artist, an opportunity he spurned when it was his for the taking. Ultimately, we learn to understand his futuristic approach to fashion and music. “What I am is a maverick,” he says. No one will question him on that.

The 3D world the filmmakers have made is astonishing, with waves of clear Lego pieces washing up on a beach made of slats of Lego baseplates and Williams' collection of cool beats depicted as bouncing bricks with lights in them. There's Lego McDonald's nuggets, Lego pretzels, singing Lego fish and a Lego Anna Wintour, chilly and haughty in plastic, too.

Lego, while seemingly a restrictive medium — the hands are clips and everyone's walking is robotic since there are no Lego knees — can also, apparently, in the right hands soar, and here they do, with Williams in one gorgeous dream sequence watching the Earth's lights as a distant astronaut. It is when the filmmakers make Lego appear as water and music that are their crowning achievements.

Music credits are notoriously hard to pin down — Williams claims to have created McDonald's notoriously mysterious jingle “I'm lovin' it” — and the filmmakers try to cover any misinformation with a simple disclaimer in the end credits: “Not everything in this film is 100% accurate. For example, Pharrell never went to space.”

There are also some extraordinary moments that snap by but likely took months to make, like a Lego glimpse of the “I Have A Dream” speech by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lincoln Memorial and protest footage from Black Lives Matter figurines shouting “Don’t shoot!”

The documentary lags a little during Williams' way up and rushes the years on top, although recreations of some of the music videos he fueled are too funny. Why he and Hugo broke up is papered over and the filmmakers struggle to find an ending, making several stutter steps.

“I think we're done,” are the last words we hear as the filmmakers finally give up. But they've left behind a trippy, sweet portrait of a genius, forever in building blocks.



‘Severance,’ ‘The Penguin’ Lead Nominations for TV’s Emmy Awards

US actor Adam Scott attends PaleyFest LA screening of the season finale of "Severance" at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, California, on March 21, 2025. (AFP)
US actor Adam Scott attends PaleyFest LA screening of the season finale of "Severance" at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, California, on March 21, 2025. (AFP)
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‘Severance,’ ‘The Penguin’ Lead Nominations for TV’s Emmy Awards

US actor Adam Scott attends PaleyFest LA screening of the season finale of "Severance" at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, California, on March 21, 2025. (AFP)
US actor Adam Scott attends PaleyFest LA screening of the season finale of "Severance" at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, California, on March 21, 2025. (AFP)

Psychological thriller "Severance" from Apple TV+ and HBO's crime drama "The Penguin" stacked up the most nominations for Emmy Awards on Tuesday, outpacing "The Studio" and "The White Lotus" in the contest for television's highest honors.

"Severance" received a leading 27 nominations and was nominated for the top prize of best drama alongside Star Wars series "Andor,The Pitt,The White Lotus" and others.

"The Penguin," set in the DC Comics universe and starring Colin Farrell, earned 24 nominations and will compete for best limited series against Netflix hit "Adolescence," among others.

Hollywood satire "The Studio," an Apple TV+ show featuring Seth Rogen as a nervous film executive, and HBO's "The White Lotus," about murder and misdeeds at a luxury resort, received 23 each.

"What the heck?!! We never thought this would happen," Rogen said in a statement.

Comedy nominees included defending champion "Hacks," previous winner "The Bear,Nobody Wants This" and "Abbott Elementary."

The 23 nominations for "The Studio" tied the record for a comedy in a single season, set last year by Chicago restaurant tale "The Bear."

Winners of the Emmys will be announced at a red-carpet ceremony in Los Angeles, broadcast live on CBS on September 14. Comedian Nate Bargatze will host.

The television industry is undergoing a contraction as media companies curtail the sky-high spending they shelled out to compete in the shift to streaming platforms led by Netflix.

Longtime Emmy favorite HBO and the HBO Max streaming service topped all programmers with 142 nominations, a record for the network.

Walt Disney collected 137 nominations, including six for ABC's "Abbott Elementary," one of the few broadcast shows in the Emmy mix. "Andor," on Disney+, received 14.

Netflix garnered 120 nods and Apple scored 81, its highest total since launching its streaming service in 2019.

"Severance" tells the story of office workers who undergo a procedure to make them forget their home life at work, and vice versa.

"It's distinctive in every way - in terms of its storytelling, in terms of style, in terms of its directing, its tone," said Matt Cherniss, head of programming at Apple TV+.

Star Adam Scott, a best actor nominee, said the cast was unsure how viewers would respond.

"The fact that it's resonated at all has been just such an incredible feeling," Scott said. "We thought it was something that might be too weird."

WYLE, FORD IN THE RUNNING

Noah Wyle received his first Emmy nomination since 1999 for his role as an emergency room doctor on "The Pitt." Wyle was nominated five times for "ER" but never won.

"I'm humbled and grateful," Wyle said of the recognition for "The Pitt," which received 13 total nominations.

Harrison Ford, 83, earned his first Emmy nod, for playing a grumpy therapist on "Shrinking."

Ron Howard, the former "Happy Days" star turned Oscar-winning director, also landed his first acting nomination, a guest actor nod for playing himself on "The Studio." He will compete with fellow director Martin Scorsese, also a guest star on the show.

Other notable acting nominees included Farrell and Cristin Milioti for "The Penguin,The Bear" actors Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri, "Hacks" stars Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder, Kathy Bates for "Matlock" and Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey for "The Last of Us."

Eight "White Lotus" actors were recognized.

"This is a bunch of cherries on the icing on the cake that was the gift of playing such a tortured and lonely human," said Jason Isaacs, who portrayed a suicidal father facing financial ruin on the show.

Beyonce also made the Emmys list. Her halftime performance during a National Football League game on Netflix was nominated for best live variety special.

Missing from the field was Netflix's popular Korean drama "Squid Game," while the final season of previous drama winner "The Handmaid's Tale" received just one nod.

Winners will be chosen by the roughly 26,000 performers, directors, producers and other members of the Television Academy.