Aretha Franklin Gets The 'Respect' She Deserves In New Biopic
Starring Jennifer Hudson, Forest Whitaker, Audra McDonald, Marlon Wayans, Marc Maron, Tituss Burgess
Rated PG-13
Biography, drama
Run time: 2 hr, 25 min
Directed by Liesl Tommy
In theaters August 13, 2021
It’s easy to underestimate what seems to be yet another musical biopic, but when Jennifer Hudson is going to be playing an icon like Aretha Franklin, it forces you to sit up and take notice. Granted, this is a relatively standard based-on-a-true-story tale about an iconic singer. But, when casting is this perfect, it can elevate a mediocre movie into a good one. We already know that Hudson has the acting and singing chops (thanks to Dreamgirls and - I can’t believe I’m saying it - Cats), and when you are telling the story of someone as fascinating as Franklin, it’s pretty hard for it to fall flat.
Unfortunately, despite being the tale of someone so incredibly talented and celebrated, it does have a lot of darkness behind it. Aretha’s greatness was evident from the very beginning, but it was also exploited, whether by her father (Whitaker) or a romantic partner. It seems like Franklin’s problem was never that she couldn’t find her voice, it was more she didn’t know where to use it best. She was prolific when it came to both gospel and social activism, but she was known as the Queen of Soul for good reason. This one truly gifted woman almost singlehandedly seemed to have created the genre that combined the soul of gospel music with some sounds of more commercially successful songs to change the music landscape forever.
No matter what critiques I have of this film, none of it comes back on Hudson. I don’t know another actress alive who could have done what she did with Franklin’s songs and story. Every note she sang felt like a true homage and paid the utmost respect (see what I did there?) to a legend. The script was solid, she acted admirably and her singing, was of course, phenomenal. This is what she does best, and this was the perfect vehicle for her. In fact, I have zero issues with any of the performances in this movie. My problems tend to come with the story itself. For being two and a half hours, it somehow feels like I got both too much and too little information about Franklin’s life. I can’t imagine how hard it is to edit a human life’s journey into a feature film, but it was a bit too disjointed.
I came into this movie knowing next to nothing about Aretha Franklin other than her incredibly popular songs and a whisper of her social activism. Since I was relatively blind to her true story, I was hoping to get more in depth on things Respect barely touched on. We have a few scenes showing how her life intersected with Martin Luther King, Jr., but her determination to help change the world becomes a back burner topic as we see her music career soar in the film. Relationships with lovers and family aren’t articulated enough for us to truly get a feel for them, as we’re dropped in and out of them in the film only as it coincides with big parts of her career, which doesn’t line up with the picture we’re painted about who she truly is. It doesn’t give the full story, but the snippets that we get make me even more in awe that we got to live on the planet at the same time as someone this incredible, and that makes it worth the watch.