Matthew Turner | On 14, Dec 2021

Director: Liesl Tommy
Cast: Jennifer Hudson, Forest Whitaker, Marlon Wayans, Audra McDonald, Marc Maron, Tituss Burgess, Mary J Blige, Skye Dakota Turner
Certificate: 12

It’s not often that the subject of a biopic gets casting approval, but that’s essentially what happened with Respect, as Aretha Franklin – before her death in 2018 – hand-picked Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson to play her. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Franklin’s instincts were spot on, as Hudson delivers a dynamite central performance that significantly elevates this otherwise fairly standard biopic.

The script, by Tracey Scott Wilson (Fosse/Verdon), begins with Franklin’s pre-teen years in Detroit in 1952 (aged 10) and ends with the live church recording of her gospel album Amazing Grace, 20 years later, ignoring the fact that she lived another 66 years. That decision crystallises the focus of the film, which centres on Aretha emerging from the shadow of controlling men in her life and finding both her voice and her defining identity as the Queen of Soul.

The film is extremely strong on Aretha’s family background, in particular her religious upbringing and her relationship with Baptist minister father CL Franklin (Forest Whitaker), who regularly yanks her out of bed to perform for party guests when she’s young and, later, takes charge of her early career. Aretha eventually gets free of CL, only for her first husband, Ted White (Marlon Wayans), to prove similarly controlling.

The film maintains that it wasn’t until Aretha met producer Jerry Wexler (Marc Maron) that her career really took off. After nine albums but no big hits, she signed with Atlantic Records and began recording in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, with an all-white backing group (whose own career is beautifully documented in the 2013 documentary Muscle Shoals).

To that end, the film doesn’t stray too far from the standard collection of musician biopic clichés, but director Liesl Tommy clearly has a feel for the genre and the key scenes work like gangbusters. The film’s stand-out sequence sees Aretha take charge during the recording of I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You), transforming a standard song into something powerful, moving and rich with depth.

The film is a little episodic in places, skipping ahead to the next key moment, rather than spending time on context. While it’s not exactly hagiographic, the eminently respectful script frequently prefers to let the audience read between the lines when it comes to the uglier details of Aretha’s life – you never find out who fathered her first child when she was 12 years old, for example, and there’s no hint of the significant impact that this must have had on her family.

Fortunately, Hudson’s terrific performance more than compensates for any minor deficiencies in the script and her renditions of Franklin’s songs are sensational. It’s an uplifting, empowering and deeply inspiring turn, capturing every emotional aspect of Franklin’s journey.

The supporting cast are equally good, particularly Whitaker, Wayans and Maron as the three key men in Franklin’s life. There’s also a fabulous cameo from Mary J Blige as Dinah Washington (one of several famous family friends), who kicks off at one of Aretha’s early shows, delivering the film’s best line: “Bitch, don’t ever sing the queen’s songs when the queen is in front of you!”

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