{"id":1170598,"date":"2021-08-13T18:53:14","date_gmt":"2021-08-13T15:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1170598"},"modified":"2021-08-13T18:53:14","modified_gmt":"2021-08-13T15:53:14","slug":"aretha-franklin-deserves-more-than-a-cookie-cutter-biopic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1170598","title":{"rendered":"Aretha Franklin Deserves More Than a Cookie-Cutter Biopic"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Aretha Franklin Deserves More Than a Cookie-Cutter Biopic<\/h1>\n
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New film Respect<\/em> and recent miniseries Genius: Aretha<\/em> just can\u2019t capture the magic of the Queen of Soul.<\/div>\n
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By <\/span>Eric Torres<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Jennifer Hudson as Aretha Franklin in \u201cRespect,\u201d with Marlon Wayans as Ted White and Marc Maron as Jerry Wexler. Photo by Quantrell D. Colbert\/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A nagging question lingers while watching Respect<\/em>, director Liesl Tommy\u2019s glossy new Aretha Franklin movie: Is it even possible to break free from the rote hallmarks of the music biopic anymore? The long-delayed project arrives in theaters this week as a retelling of Franklin\u2019s early life and rise through the music industry, with Jennifer Hudson as its luminous center. But even as she slips into Franklin\u2019s feathered and sequined gowns to belt out the hits, Respect<\/em>\u2019s commitment to a rigid formula\u2014the rise, the fall, and the redemption\u2014creates a paint-by-numbers vehicle for its leading star more than anything truly substantial for the Queen of Soul.<\/p>\n

The new film is cosigned by Franklin\u2019s immediate family, and the icon herself was involved in its production up until her death in 2018, a sanction that was notably withheld from National Geographic\u2019s Cynthia Erivo-starring miniseries Genius: Aretha<\/em>, which arrived earlier this year. \u201cWe feel extremely disrespected,\u201d the singer\u2019s granddaughter, Grace Franklin, said in a TikTok urging fans not to watch the eight-part series. \u201cWe feel there will be many inaccuracies about my grandmother\u2019s life.\u201d That fear ended up being kind of true. Genius: Aretha<\/em> often futzed with the timeline, yanking viewers between gauzy childhood memories and Franklin\u2019s ascent to the point of dizziness. With a competing biopic in the works, Genius<\/em> also obviously couldn\u2019t land the rights to \u201cRespect\u201d and was forced to rely mostly on lesser hits and Aretha-influenced music by Raphael Saadiq. Yet in hindsight, the series looks like a dry run for Respect<\/em>. The film covers most of the same ground in a similarly tedious bid to pay tribute.<\/p>\n

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Respect<\/em> is immediately too smoothed over and inert to garner much soul. Its opening scene, doused in honeyed, nostalgic light, shows Aretha (played as a child by the talented Skye Dakota Turner) awoken by her reverend father (Forest Whitaker) to perform at a party in their home where Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, and Dinah Washington (played by a scene-stealing Mary J. Blige) make themselves known in groan-worthy introductions. It neatly sets up Franklin\u2019s early life in the company of legends, but the scenes that take place on the gospel circuit better establish the power of her voice. In a sweeping pan, the camera captures the audience\u2019s gobsmacked reaction to Aretha as a child singing gospel; as it turns back to the pulpit, Hudson has assumed her place, rooting her portrayal in the ecclesiastical traditions that launched Franklin to success.<\/p>\n

Like Erivo before her, Hudson plays Aretha with a meek and wide-eyed facade that only cracks under pressure. But Hudson, who was picked by Franklin months before her death, is clearly a better fit both as a vocalist and an actor. Dashes of rebellion flare up in arguments with the men angling for control over her life and career: There\u2019s her bullish father who insists on gospel and jazz standards; her physically abusive ex-husband and manager, Ted White (a fumbling, miscast Marlon Wayans); and Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler, trying and failing to find her a hit. (Here Wexler is played by an effectively hammy Marc Maron, who makes David Cross\u2019 depiction in Genius<\/em> look like a lost Mr. Show<\/em> sketch.) As Franklin starts to find success in the music industry on her own terms\u2014boosted by a famously commanding turn recording \u201cI Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)\u201d in Muscle Shoals\u2014she still suffers from deep-rooted trauma, a theme that attempts to give the movie its thrust as she falls into addiction.<\/p>\n

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Even in Respect<\/em>\u2019s most dramatic moments, Hudson\u2019s version of Franklin remains slightly out of reach emotionally. It\u2019s a pitfall Erivo fell into too, and now feels like an ostensible part of trying to adapt the superstar\u2019s life. Franklin\u2019s music could easily access those dark nights of the soul, but she also carried herself with somewhat of a guarded persona. Plus there\u2019s simply too much history to get through, including her involvement in the civil rights movement alongside Franklin family friend Martin Luther King, Jr. The film also quickly glides past her alcoholism, resolving the issue neatly with a flashback to her mother (played by an underused Audra McDonald) during one of Franklin\u2019s low points. After each expected beat is met, it begins to feel like there isn\u2019t much room left for the actors to dig deeper into their roles, instead relying on exceptional vocal performances.<\/p>\n

At least Respect<\/em> gets that part right, with its dazzling concert setpieces. When Aretha unleashes \u201cRespect\u201d on a stadium crowd for the first time, Hudson is a glittering focal point as the camera spins around her in pandemonium, capturing the glee on her band\u2019s and audience\u2019s faces as much as her own. As made abundantly clear in Dreamgirls<\/em>, Hudson\u2019s voice is a technical powerhouse, but she doesn\u2019t try to imitate Franklin here. Instead, classics like \u201cThink,\u201d \u201cChain of Fools,\u201d and \u201c(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman\u201d simply come across as a series of exceptionally well-done covers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmazing Grace\u201d caps off the film during a reenactment of Franklin\u2019s 1972 performance at Los Angeles\u2019 New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, the recording of which yielded the gospel double album that remains her bestselling to date. That brings us to another filmed artifact in Franklin\u2019s legacy: Sydney Pollack and Alan Elliott\u2019s transcendent Amazing Grace<\/em>, the documentary about that fateful recording released for the first time in 2018. No biopic stands a chance against the real thing, of course, but if you\u2019re looking for the raw, soul-shaking power of Franklin\u2019s voice as a vehicle for passion, it isn\u2019t in Genius<\/em> or Respect<\/em>. As if realizing this, the new film even splices some archival footage of the venue from the Amazing Grace<\/em> documentary into its grand finale. The brief nod feels inadvertently revealing: Even at its edges, Respect<\/em> is hampered by its own lack of imagination.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Source URL: https:\/\/pitchfork.com\/thepitch\/aretha-franklin-biopic-respect-review\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Columns Aretha Franklin Deserves More Than a Cookie-Cutter Biopic New film Respect and recent miniseries Genius: Aretha just can\u2019t capture the magic of the Queen of Soul. By Eric Torres August 13, 2021 Jennifer Hudson as Aretha Franklin in \u201cRespect,\u201d with Marlon Wayans as Ted White and Marc Maron as Jerry Wexler. Photo by Quantrell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1170599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[54],"class_list":["post-1170598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-pitchfork-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1170598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1170599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1170598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1170598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1170598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}