Respect

The film was more of a collection of vignettes than a complete story. It felt very disjointed. Characters appeared and disappeared, and stories were left incomplete. It was difficult to determine Aretha's motives during life changes.

"RESPECT" (2021 release; 145 min.) is the latest bio-pic about Aretha Franklin. You may recall that earlier this year there was the 8 part TV mini-series "Genius: Aretha" which premiered in March, 2021, and while it wasn't bad, neither did it feel like it did full justice to the genius of Aretha. By then it was already well-known that a new bio-pic was being made starring none other than Oscar-winning Jennifer Hudson. In fact, in the last few years before passing away in 2018, Aretha herself had dared/blessed/encouraged Jennifer to play her. As the movie opens, we are introduced to 10 yr. Old Aretha, who is woken at night by her daddy to sing for a group of (mostly church) friends her parents are hosting for dinner. Aretha brings down the house, and before you know it, she is performing at church. In a clever montage, she starts singing "There Is A Fountain Filled With Blood", and young Aretha segues into adult Aretha....

Couple of comments: this movie is the feature debut for director Liels Tommy. She is best known for her work on Broadway. Here she makes the jump to the big screen, with a large production budget and an all-star cast fronted by Jennifer Hudson. The movie is quite good, although a bit slow at times. But the real reason for watching this is of course Jennifer Hudson, who brings a stunning performance. She really IS Aretha Franklin. As a consequence, even though the movie is not without flaws, "RESPECT" has now become the definitive Aretha Franklin biopic, period. I am already going on record that not only Jennifer Hudson will get a Best Actress Oscar nomination, but that she likely will be one of the, if not THE, frontrunner for that race.

As a complete aside, there is the original soundtrack of this movie, featuring Jennifer singing all those Aretha classics. Without the visuals of the movie, the soundtrack isn't nearly as compelling. But wait, there is a solution: in late July, a career-spanning and generous 4 CD box set (81 tracks; 310 min.) simply called "ARETHA" was released. Just like "RESPECT" is now the definitive Aretha Franklin biopic, "ARETHA" became the immediate, ultimate and definitive CD compilation. Bottom line: both "RESPECT" (the film) and "ARETHA" (the CD box) are a winner!

Recently I saw a great TV series, Genius: Aretha Franklin, which offered the width and breadth of Aretha Franklin, showing the myriad experiences that made her who she became.

The Genius series was ambitious with its shifting time and harsh moments, but Respect is a more traditional biopic, with many of the edges sanded off. It's not that there aren't good moments - Aretha creating in the studio or putting on a fabulous show can be electrifying - it's just that those moments aren't used to build anything. Genius suggested that Aretha's life was worth telling because she was interesting, Respect tells you Aretha's life is worth telling because, well, she's famous, and people like to learn about famous people.

Jennifer Hudson is excellent. Respect makes you wish you could go back in time and see Aretha in concert in a way Genius didn't. But in the end there's a "so what" quality to the endeavor.

This is a biopic of legendary performer Aretha Franklin (Jennifer Hudson). Forest Whitaker plays her preacher father C. L. Franklin. Marlon Wayans plays his troublesome husband Ted White.

In the DVD extras, someone claims that this is not a standard cradle to grave biopic. In many ways, this is exactly that. It starts with Aretha as a child and goes to Aretha passing in real life. There is no doubt that Jennifer Hudson has all tools. She's not just a five tool player. She's an all tools player. The question is the very straight forward story telling. This seems to be a story begging to zero in on her 'demon'. A bit of imagination could turn that demon into a surreal character which first hounds her father, then her rapists, her husband, her alcoholism, and even MLK's murder. It's a suggestion. In an aside, the church finale should consists of the real Aretha footage. Again, this seems to be begging for that but maybe they didn't have the copyright. Director Liesl Tommy does transition to the aged Aretha singing Natural Woman which is really a second choice for me. This is a safe biopic starting with the very capable Hudson and the standard story telling.

I went to see this film today and was really excited, but this film didn't deliver what I thought it would.

Jennifer Hudson is phenomenal as Aretha Franklin, she has an incredible voice and portrayed her really well.

But there wasn't too much plot to follow, and if you're gonna put Mary J. In a biopic about Aretha, make her do more, she pretty much appeared and disappeared.

Also, Marlon Wayans could've been better, the scene in the hotel where he keeps calling that guy a redneck felt tacked on and cringey.

This film is also way too long, at least 20 minutes could've been cut, the opening was way too stretched out and the church scene was the same.

In the end respect was a bit of a disappointment, and I'm gonna give it a C+