I know that the pandemic severely altered our regular moviegoing habits and the way new releases were promoted. Let me say right off that RESPECT, starring Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson as the late, great Aretha Franklin, would have been a most satisfying Saturday night date movie. As far as promotion, I do not recall seeing a lot of promotion on TV for the film. Until I watched it on DVD this week, I had no idea that RESPECT also starred another Oscar winner and an Oscar nominee who made history. In the movie, young new singer, Aretha Franklin, is extremely talented, but she needs respect from her reserved, controlling, strict father played by Forest Whitaker. Whitaker won the Best Actor Oscar for his amazing performance as dictator Idi Amin in 2006's THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND. Mary J. Blige, recently seen by millions of TV viewers who watched the Super Bowl half-time show, got a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her absolutely stunning dramatic film debut in 2017's MUDBOUND directed by Dee Rees. That story takes us to the Mississippi Delta during the Great Depression. Blige played a sharecropper's wife dealing with racism and what World War 2 service will do to her family life. Weeks after I saw MUDBOUND, still on Netflix, I was thinking of the power Blige subtly brought to her final scene. The same year Mary J. Blige got that Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination, she was nominated in the Best Song category for writing "Mighty River," the song heard in MUDBOUND. Mary J. Blige made Hollywood history as the first person ever to be nominated for an acting Oscar and a Best Song Oscar in the same year.
It's a small role, but Mary J. Blige just about sets the screen on fire with her sensational performance as famed blues singer, Dinah Washington. Washington is a music great deserving of her own big screen biopic. She was so famous that her face was placed on a U.S. postal stamp. Blige's performance as the temperamental, candid vocalist who had a big hit record with "What a Difference a Day Makes" is one of the highlights of RESPECT. Mary J. Blige has got the acting gift.
RESPECT is pretty standard for a celebrity biopic. The young person has a major talent but hasn't found his or her individual voice. When that voice is found, success comes. The person's personal demons still exist as stardom takes over his or her life. Drinking and/or drugs enter the picture and the celebrity/star becomes irresponsible. The demons are fought and the star re-emerges with stronger, more meaningful work. We saw this in the fine WALK THE LINE with Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash, the also fine ROCKETMAN with Taron Edgerton as Elton John and, to a degree, RAY which starred Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles and got him a very well-deserved Oscar for Best Actor.
In RESPECT, little Aretha sings for guests at her preacher dad's Saturday night parties in their comfortable, middle class Detroit home. Her parents are separated. She has joyful visits with her musically talented mother -- played by Audra McDonald -- who teaches sweet little Aretha how to polish her musical gift. Tragedy strikes. Her mom dies and she's sexually molested by one of her dad's party guests. The molestation causes a pregnancy. Grown Aretha has a yen for men and her sexual affairs seem to be a rebellion against her dad who has her sing at the church pulpit after he preaches. He controls her career. He signs her with top record producer John Hammond in New York City. Hammond, who revered and respected Black talent, loved Aretha but had her cut three years of overproduced, posh albums that had moderate sales. Things change when she moves on, signs with Jerry Wexler and records tunes with some serious funk in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. When she sits at the piano, plays and tells the White musicians "Follow me," her real voice begins to emerge. The White bandmembers dig and respect her. It's Aretha's husband who turns out to be the racist -- and physically abusive. Eventually, dealing with all that and being shunned by her dad -- whom Dinah Washington tagged as a "proper Negro" -- recording "Respect" will make her an international star. She will drink, have more problems with men and relatives, be heartbroken and affected by events of the Civil Rights era and re-emerge triumphant. Jennifer Hudson, Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner for 2006's DREAMGIRL, is good. Especially when she sings. Here's a trailer.
Stand-out performances are also delivered by Skye Dakota Turner as little Aretha, Tituss Burgess as supportive James Cleveland, Marc Maron as Jerry Wexler and Tate Donovan (who was the flamboyant, flirty owner of The Troubadour nightclub in ROCKETMAN) as the sophisticated, genteel John Hammond.
I've written before about the disturbing number of Black actresses who got an Oscar nomination, maybe even won the award, then had to turn to TV for steady employment because the nomination or win was not followed by more good Hollywood script offers. Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Angela Bassett, Alfre Woodward, Taraji P. Henson and Gabourey Sidibe are all in that category. Even after two Oscar nominations, Viola Davis turned to ABC primetime TV because Hollywood had no good script opportunities for her. RESPECT is not Jennifer Hudson's first biopic. After her Oscar win, she had the lead role in 2011's biopic, WINNIE MANDELA. That film, with Terrence Howard as Nelson Mandela, got hardly any promotion. It was released in the U.S. in 2013. For 20 years, Oscar winner Whoopi Goldberg was the most Oscar-nominated Black actress in Hollywood history with just 2 nominations. She's on ABC's THE VIEW because Hollywood was not frequently sending her good script opportunities. That Hollywood discrimination is hugely under-reported.
How many good Hollywood script offers did Mary J. Blige receive after getting two historic Oscar nominations in the same year? Why wasn't there more talk about her brief but memorable performance in RESPECT?
RESPECT ends with Hudson as Aretha in her successful gospel church concert in Los Angeles. That concert inspired the excellent 2018 documentary, AMAZING GRACE. Take a look.
RESPECT, directed by Ms. Liesl Tommy, runs 2 hours and 25 minutes.
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