Music biopics get creative at the Toronto International Film Festival

Many of the expected conventions of music biopics are present in Piece by Piece, about the producer-turned-pop star Pharrell Williams, and Better Man, about the British singer Robbie Williams. There’s the young artist’s urge to break through, fallow creative periods and regrettable chapters of fame-addled excess. But there are a few, little differences. In Piece by Piece, Pharrell is a Lego. And in Better Man, Williams is played by a CGI monkey.

If the music biopic can sometimes feel a little stale in format, these two movies, both premiering this week at the Toronto International Film Festival, attempt novel remixes. In each film, each Williams recounts his life story as a narrator. But their on-screen selves aren’t movie stars who studied to get a part just right, but computer-generated animations living out real superstar fantasies.

While neither Williams has much in common as a musician, neither has had a very traditional career. Their films became reflections of their individuality, and, maybe, a way to distinguish themselves in the crowded field of music biopics like Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman. “This is about being who you are, even if it’s not something that can be put in a box,” said Pharrell in an interview alongside director Morgan Neville. Also next to Pharrell: A two-foot-tall Lego sculpture of himself, which was later in the day brought to the film’s premiere and given its own seat in the crowd.

The experience watching the crowd-pleasing Piece by Piece, which Focus Features will release on 11 October, can be pleasantly discombobulating. A wide spectrum of things you never expected to see in Lego form are animated. Virginia Beach (where Pharrell grew up). An album of Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life. Jay-Z.

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“I’m just so grateful that everybody said yes,” says Pharrell. “Morgan said yes. Lego said yes. Focus said yes. Universal said yes. When you get to all those yeses, you realize how impossible this is.”

Neville, the filmmaker of 20 Feet From Stardom, Won't You Be My Neighbor and the recent Steve Martin doc, made Piece by Piece like a documentary. When he interviewed people for the film — everyone from Missy Elliott to Kendrick Lamar — he spoke to them by Zoom and told them they’d be animated. But he didn’t share how. Pharrell as a Lego is surprisingly winning. It’s a way to represent Pharrell as, at heart, a playful builder of beats, a man hellbent on fame who assembled his own destiny. “I felt like everything we were doing in the film was totally reflective of the subject of the film,” Neville says. “We’re not doing Lego because it’s a gimmick. We’re doing it because it’s the only way to tell this story right.”

Piece by Piece will be the unusual film to potentially vie in both the best documentary and best animated film categories at the Academy Awards, along with the best song category. (Pharrell made several originals for it.)

The high concept of Better Man began with a query by filmmaker Michael Gracey, who directed the hit musical The Greatest Showman. He approached Williams, the bad-boy balladeer, with a question. “I said: ‘What animal do you see yourself as?’” Gracey told the crowd, introducing Better Man at the film’s premiere. “And with a big grin he said, ‘Lion.’” After a moment, Williams reflected and acknowledged the truer answer—for an entertainer who started out in boy band Take That—was a monkey.

In the film, the actor playing Williams is Jonno Davies — only we don’t see him, either. Not unlike the process on the Planet of the Apes films, Davies performed in a motion-capture suit. Later, digital effects teams placed the chimpanzee of the film on top of him. One part is Williams himself: the eyes of the monkey’s face. Every other character, meanwhile, is human.

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While Piece by Piece is a more all-ages release, Better Man is R-rated and doesn’t skimp on the rock ‘n’ roll debauchery. It’s the most cocaine you’ve ever seen a chimp ingest. It also makes for a peculiar viewing experience. Is Williams a more sympathetic figure as a wounded animal than he is as a human? Either way, Williams is delighted by the result. “For a narcissist, it’s a wonderful treat,” he beamed at the screening. “I’ve seen it three times. It’s not enough.”