‘Respect’ review: Jennifer Hudson honors Aretha Franklin and belts out another Oscar-worthy performance

Liesl Tommy’s Respect opens in Detroit, in the home where Aretha Franklin (1942-2018) lived for much of her childhood. It is 1952, and “Re,” the family’s sobriquet for the future “Queen of Soul,” is asleep in her room. Her father, who is the pastor of a large Baptist congregation, is entertaining friends; a tracking shot of the guests, name-dropping the likes of ‘Uncle Duke’ and ‘Aunt Ella,’ pauses at Dinah Washington (Mary J. Blige), then at the height of her singing career. Tommy’s female gaze is apparent in the next shot in which C.L. Franklin (Forest Whitaker) awakens Aretha (Skye Dakota Turner), who is dressed in a white nightgown, to sing for the crowd. The girl’s vulnerability is articulated through her costume, and in the way that C.L. parades Aretha through the room, displaying his daughter like a prized possession. 

A woman asks Aretha’s age, and Washington replies that “she’s 10 but her voice is going on 30.” Turner’s bearing reinforces that view: her young Aretha is confident, and walks with a dignity beyond her years to the bench where she sits beside a male pianist. The bell-like clarity of her voice temporarily dispels the revulsion some viewers will feel in C.L.’s theatrics. A sense of portent pervades the opening sequence, and it lingers until the scene in which Aretha sits at the piano with her mother, an image in direct contrast to the party scene. Basking in her affection,  Aretha is safe. Separated from C.L. when Aretha was six years old, Barbara Franklin (Audra McDonald) was a well-regarded gospel singer and pianist. She encourages Aretha to be self-reliant, knowing that C.L. is a towering and domineering figure in her young life. 

Respect is Tommy’s cinematic debut as a director, and her talent is felt mostly in her skillful direction of the actors. Jennifer Hudson’s Oscar-worthy star performance as the adult Aretha, and Whitaker’s as a co-star, are excellent. Hudson was chosen by Aretha to portray her in the film, and her rendition of Aretha’s voice and phrasing is sublime. Notable among the film’s solid cast are Turner, Kimberly Scott as Mama Franklin, and Marc Maron as Jerry Wexler, head of Atlantic Records, with whom Aretha had her first hit song. One glaring mistake in casting is Marlon Wayans as Ted White, Aretha’s first husband; his one-note performance weakens the portion of the film that depicts Aretha’s early days at Atlantic Records. 

Tommy’s modified “cradle to grave” biopic is entertaining and, in many ways, novel in its conception of Aretha Franklin’s life. Some of that uniqueness stems from the fact that the director, who is a Black South African, gathered an impressive number of Black, female collaborators, including a South African screenwriter, so that her gaze, combined with the contribution of Black key crew members, like makeup artist Libra Cordero and hair stylist Andrea Bowman, add the much-needed racial and female-centered dimensions also apparent, for instance, in the work of African-American writer-director Kasi Lemmons (Harriet, 2019). 

Tommy, a Tony-nominated playwright who has also worked in television, would have benefitted from more experienced film collaborators in cinematography and production design. The movie is so darkly lit, at times it appears monochromatic, and while interiors are carefully decorated for authenticity, they rarely lend depth, for instance, to characterization or mood. Compensating for these shortcomings are Tracey Scott Williams’s well-written screenplay, Avril Beukes’s competent picture edit, and an excellent soundtrack. The filmmakers tacked on too many endings, but Aretha fans will revel in that, and in this well-researched movie. 

Respect depicts over 20 years of Aretha’s life and career as a singular vocalist, accomplished pianist, songwriter, and record and film producer. Ray Charles once dubbed her a “creator,” among the artists “who genuinely create their sound.” In the first half of Respect, Tommy illustrates how difficult that journey to authenticity was for Aretha whose childhood loss of her mother caused her significant psychological trauma. The movie begins in 1952 because that year, in addition to Barbara’s demise, Aretha was subject to emotional injuries that, from the perspective of the filmmakers, determined the course of much of her adult life. 

Respect posits that the compliant daughter of a father who developed her talent, but who also required absolute authority over her life and art, made her prey for other types of abuse. It is an archetypal story, here set in an affluent, religious, African-American home where world-renowned men and women, such as Martin Luther and Coretta King were frequent guests, and luminaries Clara Ward and Mahalia Jackson were the young woman’s mentors, a home where music was at the center of every family member’s life. As for finding redemption, her father’s gay church pianist, played by Tituss Burgess, tells Aretha early in the movie, “It is the music that will save you,” and it does, as the film illustrates, along with the artist’s abiding faith in God.

Respect moves from 1952 to the teenage Aretha in the 1960s; it touches upon her first recording contract at Columbia Records, as well as her early political activism. The film also chronicles Aretha’s lifelong support of progressive people and causes. It depicts her marriage to Ted and the subsequent estrangement from her father who mistrusted him, and Ted’s management of her career that hastened the break with Columbia. While the songs Aretha records there mark a subtle shift toward independence in the film, it is after she leaves Columbia and signs on with Wexler that her music begins to mirror her life. 

Perhaps the strongest sequence is the first, and legendary, recording session in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, that Wexler arranges and Ted nearly derails. The all-white band does not quite know what to expect until Aretha begins to play the piano; it is then that the musicians realize they are in the presence of a very special artist. That scene chronicles a turning point in Aretha’s career, when she is finally offered the opportunity to conduct, and to sing a song in a style that is all her own. The rest is “Freedom,” self-actualization, music history and legend, and “Respect.” Jennifer Hudson, whose existence parallels Aretha’s in many ways, brings it all to life with the precision and emotion common to all great artists.

Grade: B+

MGM will release Respect only in theaters on August 13.

Photo: Quantrell D. Colbert/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer