At 6, Franklin endured the separation of her
mother — never explicitly said in the film
because her dad was sleeping around — and
then her mom’s death at 10. The film’s first half
hour dwells on these twin calamities, featuring
Skye Dakota Turner as a terrific young Aretha
and Forest Whitaker as her father, a complex
role that mixes warmth and anger but never
quite illuminates.
Franklin, who died in 2018, was raped and
impregnated as a pre-teen, hit by her father and
then hit again by her first husband (a fabulous,
equal parts smoldering and vicious, Marlon
Wayans.) The queen was both a civil rights
icon — standing with the Rev. Martin Luther
King, Jr — and a diva-ish drunk who lashed
out at friends. How much her abuse led to her
addiction is only suggested.
Hudson isn’t afraid to get ugly at rock bottom,
though maybe not as harrowing as Andra Day
did as Lady Day in “The United States vs. Billie
Holiday.” “Respect” doesn’t dwell in the darkest
depths like that biopic of another troubled
superstar singer.
This film, unsurprisingly, is strongest whenever
the music takes over, especially when Hudson
opens her mouth and musical sparks fly or
when we’re shown Franklin feeling for her own
sound, which we are reminded didn’t happen for
several albums.
A sequence in an Alabama recording studio
when she and her white band are creating “I
Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)” is
tense and excellent, as is when she stumbles
into reworking Otis Redding’s “Respect” around
a piano with her sisters in their pajamas.