Respect (2021)

 While Jennifer Hudson may have been born to portray Aretha Franklin, this film was not the exact right vehicle for her to do so. 

The prologue of Aretha's childhood is a tad too long but it does create the backdrop of her father's (Forest Whitaker's) abuse and neglect, forcing her to sing for his famous friends and doing nothing when his twelve-year-old daughter becomes pregnant (more on that later), and shows how her career with the civil rights movement and how much of an influence singing truly had own her life from a young age.

Then, we get into the meat of the story, when Aretha's recording career finally begins along with her abusive marriage to Ted White (Marlon Wayans). Her recording career is beyond lackluster, at first, though it does slowly turn around after she marries Ted, though he mostly blows smoke out his ass. Fortunately a manager change to Jerry Wexler (Marc Maron) really make her career take off, but at a price, especially when Ted's abuse is made public (he beat her up in a hotel lobby, like a dumbass) and then she (rather suddenly) falls into alcoholism before being saved, once again, by religion.

Aretha's life was full of both the good and bad and while the script tried to show everything, I felt that it was Aretha's life being told by others, as in the one interview when Ted walks all over her. It isn't until close to the end when she finally finds her voice, alienating her family believing that they are trying to feed off her fame and she's frustrated because she's the breadwinner for the whole family, which cannot be easy, surviving with all that pressure on her which is why she cracks under the pressure. There should have been a few more hints that she was descending into alcoholism before she fell off a stage that she should have never been allowed to go on. S

 However, despite the clunky script, Hudson was great as was Audra MacDonald in the small role of Aretha's mother and a brilliant cameo from Mary J. Blige as one of Aretha's heroes, livid that Aretha is trying to sing her song but she also brings to light an issue that film shows and also sweeps it under the rug, who is the father of Aretha's two older children? The film never says, not even in the epilogue, which is a total shame. The film is also great at blending the songs in with moving the plot forward and the songs are impeccable along with the other dressings (the editing, score, costumes, set design and cinematography) so that makes it even more of a shame that the screenplay is weak. Grade: B

Side Notes:

-If my twelve-year-old become pregnant, I'd be knocking down the door of every man who's ever touched until the truth was out. that man should be in prison. We needed more context as to what happened when Clarence found out, but the film glossed over that part.

-Tituss Burgess was great as the pastor James, who helped Aretha with her gospel record.

-Despite Jerry warning her that a gospel album would never sell, it would become her best selling album.

-Her first manager, John Hammond (Tate Donovan) compares her to Billie Holliday, and says that she's much better behaved. Her father retorts that's because she didn't grow up in a whole house, which may have true and yet she was still the one who had two children as a teenager.