FOR THE RECORD
Although it manages to hit a few high notes, Aretha biopic doesn't soar as high as she did
The new Aretha Franklin biopic, Respect, sets its first scene in 1952 when the future Queen of Soul was just 10 years old and already belting out songs to impressed family and friends, many of them such music luminaries as Dinah Washington and Sam Cooke.
It ends, 20 years and a whopping two hours and 25 minutes later, with the now-world-famous Franklin performing to a relatively intimate crowd at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles. There's a documentary crew there, headed up by director Sydney Pollack.
That concert resulted in Amazing Grace, one of the bestselling gospel albums of all time. And the doc, also titled Amazing Grace, was released in 2019 after decades of technical difficulties and legal problems.
You could choose to leave Respect and instead head home to watch Amazing Grace on Netflix. Ironically, the restored documentary is actually the better movie.
There's nothing inherently wrong with Respect, but there's little that's outstanding about it either. As written by Callie Khouri and Tracey Scott Wilson, the screenplay hits all the standard music-biopic notes, including childhood troubles, early natural talent, a remember-this-moment prediction — “music will save your life,” says friend and fellow musician Rev. James Cleveland (Tituss Burgess) — and the climb to fame, which includes Finding Your Voice.
Jennifer Hudson is fine in the lead role, despite not looking much like Franklin. And Forest Whitaker and Marlon Wayans do good work as two of the conflicted, sometimes violent men who tried to shape her life — her father and first husband, respectively. But the film has less time for the singer's messy personal life, which included four children, two of them born before she was 15, another with her first husband, and one more with road manager Ken Cunningham (Albert Jones).
In fact, where Respect really finds its footing is in the recording studio. In 1967, at the behest of producer Jerry Wexler (a nicely fleshed out character played by Marc Maron), Franklin travelled to Muscle Shoals, Ala., to record I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You). The movie paints an energetic and disturbing portrait of racial tensions in the U.S. South at the time, as the all-white session musicians clash with Franklin's husband.
The other really stirring moment comes more than an hour into the movie, as Franklin noodles around with a 1965 Otis Redding number, eventually reinventing it as a feminist anthem and her signature song. Her family nickname, “Ree,” fits perfectly into the lyrics as her sisters sing a syncopated “reeree-ree-ree-spect!”
There's a lot of waiting between these and other high notes. The film has Oscar-calibre pacing, and I don't mean that in a good way. Still, fans of Franklin — and they are legion — will likely thrill to the telling. For the rest of us — well, if Respect sends more people to watch the real Franklin in Amazing Grace, that's a healthy helping of respect indeed.