Pharrell Williams' exuberant biopic Piece By Piece, Hellboy's faithful reboot
The Straits Times|December 12, 2024
The life and career of American rapper-songwriter-producer-entrepreneur Pharrell Williams are reconstructed in Lego animation.
Whang Yee Ling
Pharrell Williams' exuberant biopic Piece By Piece, Hellboy's faithful reboot

PIECE BY PIECE (PG) 95 minutes, opens exclusively at The Projector on Dec 12

The story:

Batman may have been the first celebrity with a Lego movie, but his did not boast the hip-hop powerhouses Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg and Missy Elliott plus pop star Justin Timberlake: all these Williams collaborators and Williams himself appearing in Piece By Piece as Lego mini-figures.

The director-cum-co-writer is Best Documentary Academy Award-winner Morgan Neville of 20 Feet From Stardom (2013), a tribute to backup singers. And he, too, is here a colourful plastic human brick, sitting down to interview Williams for this whimsical animated biographical documentary of the 51-year-old's rise from his humble beginnings in 1980s Virginia to the chart-shaking 2013 hits Happy and Get Lucky.

It is a rote show-business biopic story, an authorised one co-produced by Williams that says nothing unflattering other than he briefly lost focus, venturing into skincare, fragrance and fashion.

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