Morgan Neville’s new documentary film “Piece by Piece” is merely pleasant and amusing despite some novelty in the presentation of its main human subject. As that figure in question suggests early in the documentary, it surely sounds cool to present the story of his life and career in Lego animation, and I cannot help but notice how the form and content of the documentary often clash with each other without generating much synergy on the whole.

The main human subject of the documentary is none other than Pharrell Williams, who has been one of the most prominent African American musicians during last several years. I must confess that I do not know that much about his musician career, but I still fondly remember when he joyfully performed his Oscar-nominated song for “Despicable Me 2” (2013) at the 2014 Academy Awards ceremony, and his carefree attitude in the documentary certainly took me back to that delightful moment.

Presented in a Lego figure throughout the documentary, Williams looks quite willing to tell everything about his life and career. As many of you probably know, he was born and then grew up in an African American neighborhood in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and the early part of the documentary cheerfully presents his childhood period via various Lego figures and buildings. Although his parents, who also appear in Lego figures just like many other interviewees in the documentary, were rather poor, they tried their best in supporting their young son anyway, and they certainly encouraged him more when he began to show considerable interest and talent in music.

During his subsequent high school years, Williams came to form a band with his two close friends, and then there came a very fortunate chance for them not long after a certain famous record producer moved his business to Virginia Beach. When this dude held a talent show at their high school, the unadorned talent of Williams and his band was instantly noticed by this guy, and this eventually led to their first big step into the music business, though they had to train themselves under this guy for a while.

What follows next is how Williams and his colleagues struggled a lot for drawing more attention from any of those influential rap music producers out there, and the documentary generates some amusement as humorously presenting this rather desperate time of his and his colleagues. While Williams diligently made one piece of music after another, he and his band seemed to be going nowhere, and, above all, they eventually found themselves on the verge of getting totally broke without much prospect in front of them.

However, there eventually came another unexpected opportunity for them, and, what do you know, their career soon rose up quite quickly to everyone’s surprise. Everyone in the rap music business became very eager to work with Williams and his band, and his status got boosted more and more as more hit songs came from him.

Around that point, the documentary takes a very familiar narrative route, and that is when it became less interesting than before. Just like many other young musicians suddenly having the first taste of success, Williams let himself and his career driven by the need of more success to come, and he is quite frank about how he came to lose himself to some degree before inevitably experiencing a big downturn in his career not long after losing a family member who had been quite dear to him for many years.

However, this rather moody part does not fit well with the overall lightweight style and tone of the documentary, and the documentary feels like scratching the surface in case of handling the more serious parts of Williams’ life and career. For example, the part involved with Williams’ relationship with his wife is rather half-developed in my inconsequential opinion, and the documentary also does not delve much into his thoughts and feelings on the Black Lives Matter movement during the 2010s.

At least, the documentary does not disappoint us in case of its soundtrack, which utilizes well a number of old and new songs written by Williams himself. I must point out that many of his new songs are as catchy as that song for “Despicable Me 2”, but these songs support well several key moments in the documentary, and that certainly made me more interested in checking out William’s music career more later.

In addition, the documentary presents the interview clips of a bunch of various musicians as expected, and their respective appearances as Lego figures in the documentary bring some extra amusement. In case of Snoop Dog, his scenes with Williams are figuratively censored due to the PG-13 rating of the documentary, and you may wonder how their scenes would actually look and sound if it were not censored at all.

In conclusion, “Piece by Piece” entertained me to some degree, but I often got distracted by its superficial aspects, while thinking of a number of other notable animated documentary films out there. For instance, there is an Oscar-nominated Danish animated documentary film “Flee” (2021), and that documentary is much more remarkable and exceptional in many aspects. I would rather recommend that documentary first, but I will not prevent you from watching “Piece by Piece” – especially if you a fan of Williams.