August 18, 2021
Page 7
Arts &
ENTERTAINMENT
Singing Herself into History
Jennifer Hudson
stars in new
Franklin movie
d wight b rown
“They want to hear you sing,”
says Rev. C.L. Franklin (For-
est Whitaker) to his 10-year-old
daughter Aretha (Skye Dakota
Turner). And she did. Eventually
singing herself into 25 Grammys,
a posthumously awarded Pulitzer
Prize special citation and the histo-
ry books.
How Franklin became the
Queen of Soul and loved by mil-
lions is the subject of “Respect,”
the fairly detailed and very enter-
taining new biofilm that charts her
rise from childhood to 1972 and
her making of the classic, live-re-
corded album, Amazing Grace.
This project stars Jennifer Hud-
son, the singer who was hand-
picked by Franklin to play her.
Like a Queen anointing a princess,
by
Franklin deemed: “I’ve made my
decision, and it is you, young lady,
who I want to play me.” That en-
dorsement makes this Respect the
quintessential Franklin biodrama
and any others, not so much.
The movie begins in Detroit
1952, 10-year-old Aretha is a pre-
cocious musical prodigy laud-
ed by her dad C.L., loved by her
grandmother (Kimberly Scott,
The Abyss) and envied by her sib-
lings. Years later as a young adult
in the 1960s, Franklin (Hudson)
tours churches with her father who
watches her like a hawk, warding
off suitors.
C.L. helps his daughter land a
recording contract with Columbia
Records in 1960, and Franklin re-
leases jazz/pop-orientated albums
to little success. When she hooks
up with hustler turned manager
Ted White (Marlon Wayans), C.L.
is peeved: “You are not leaving this
family for that piece of trash!”
Yet this is when Aretha finds her
stride. She develops her own brand
of soul music, which starts with
the gospel/blues tinged “I Never
Loved a Man,” recorded with the
Muscle Shoals Rhythm Band on
Atlantic records in 1967. The rest
is soul music history.
C ontinued on P age 12
Jennifer Hudson
stars as Aretha
Franklin in the new
biofilm that charts
how Franklin
became the Queen
of Soul and loved
by millions.