"Respect" by Liesl Tommy (2021)

Aretha Franklin was still lying in her golden coffin (with a sparkling red shoes) when the plans were already made how to profit from sudden media interest in her: before you could say Re-Re-Re not less than three movies were ready for release. First was the never before seen footage of documentary "Amazing Grace" taped simultaneously with the now legendary gospel album, than National Geographic made eight-part TV show about her life as a part of their series "Genius" (other subjects being Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso) and finally Hollywood came around to create long-awaited Franklin biopic for which she herself selected Jennifer Hudson for the main role. And this is just the movies - compilations and re-releases of the old material poured like avalanche. I have seen "Amazing Grace" and heard all the best about TV series but the major media attention was focused on the big screen biopic that seems to have been in making since forever. 

I have always found it amusing that Franklin - a famously tight-lipped and private person who occasionally took a swipe at any perceived competition - wanted to play celebrity game but on her own terms. For example, since David Ritz wrote celebrated biographies of Marvin Gaye, Jerry Wexler, Etta James and Ray Charles, Franklin decided she must have him as a helper for her own autobiography and than remained determinedly silent about everything that he wanted to really discuss and investigate. Because the biopic of Tina Turner made such a big splash, Franklin decided she must have her own biopic and naturally any project that must have blessing of its star or the family or the estate, will eventually come out as a vanity project.

To be honest, I expected "Respect" to be much worse and the critics have already killed it. I assumed they will whitewash the main character and make her into a saint. If it fails - and ultimately it does - is because it plays too safe: it follows a very predictable cliché that we have seen countless times in other biopics, a story where main protagonist rises, falls and rises again. So all the way trough, there is this odd sensation of déjà vu like we have seen this already before. A talented black singer with an asshole husband who is domineering and physically abusive, hm, I wonder where have we seen that one? On the positive note, there is a beautiful work done with period clothes, hairstyles and visual aspects of the production. So the movie is beautiful to watch but it goes on for too long and it treats its subject with such overt reverence that as a result, hundreds of things were just glossed over and never discussed. My overall impression was not too bad actually - it will be perfectly adequate introduction to new generations who might never heard of singer. But its not very engaging, its not exciting and it feels as just another artificial, laboured biopic. Lady herself was a thrilling artist and perhaps we just expected too much that movie about her life will be thrilling as well.