Respect

I’ve mentioned before in a previous post that The Brighton Film Club is attempting to construct the definitive list of ‘music films’ representing everything from biopics, movies with great soundtracks and musicians acting.

Representing a musician’s life in film is a really tricky thing and constitutes a number of factors (including how closely involved the artist or their family are in its creation) and it’s no wonder that certain biopics absolutely soar and just feel ‘like’ the person they depict (Rocketman) and some feel a little bland or watered down (Bohemian Rhapsody).

The latest out of the blocks is Respect, the very interesting story of Aretha Franklin’s life and career. This is a film touching two and a half hours in length and still stops about half way through her life as there’s so much content to pick between.

It’s a pretty formulaic set up, telling a linear drama of childhood to early career failings, peak chart success with the inevitable demons that brings before a redemptive ending but the film works by leaving in a lot of the ugly details. Franklin first became pregnant at just 12 years old, spent much of her early career performing with Martin Luther King and had family friends in Dinah Washington, Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye and that’s all information you’ll discover in the first quarter of the film, let alone the rest of the story.

It’s truly a rollercoaster tale and fortunately propped up in the film by some towering performances and a robust script. It’s arguable that the ‘childhood’ portion of the film goes on a little too long and isn’t hugely interesting in a visual filmic sense but this pays off towards the end in a nice way. Skye Dakota Turner is also excellent as the young Aretha and Forest Whitaker excels as her preacher father.

The film truly comes into its own once Jennifer Hudson (handpicked by the real Aretha) steps into the role and gives a layered performance which has to cover a huge swathe of time. She is appropriately magnetic (huge props to the costume dept as well) and her vocals will raise goosebumps in certain scenes.

In fact, that’s what raises the film an extra star: the performance scenes. Like the best biopics, Respect opts to present songs (almost) in their entirety and does so across a variety of settings: in the recording studio, at big and small venues, during a ‘behind the scenes’ documentary. By doing this, and therefore opting for ‘live’ versions, it offers a variety of visual pizazz, incredible music and distinctive scenes destined to have every cinema goer toe-tapping along.

It’s a great choice of songs as well and closes nicely with a recreation of her Amazing Grace church performance captured in the 2019 documentary before the credits roll with a late-career performance from the real Aretha Franklin.

It doesn’t rewrite the biopic rules but is an extremely solid film with incredible music, top performances and telling the life of a truly extraordinary icon. This is how it should be done.

4 stars ****