Title - Respect
Production - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, BRON Studios
Starring - Jennifer Hudson, Forest Whitaker, Marlon Wayans, Marc Maron, Hailey Kilgore, Saycon Sengbloh, Audra McDonald, Kimberly Scott, Albert Jones, Tate Donovan, Skye Dakota Turner, Mary J. Blige
Writer - Tracey Scott Wilson, Callie Khouri
Director - Liesl Tommy
Release - 13 August 2021
"Find out what it means", says the poster tagline. It never showed us.
"Gloss" is the word that comes to mind after watching this movie. It's too glossy even when going through the tough times of her life, because most of the issues were glossed over.
Every event that supposedly was important to Aretha, we only had a glimpse of it, and then they were never mentioned again. She started drinking? Her family said she had demons? But we never got to see exactly why it happened or when.
She was raped at a young age. But what happened after that? What was the consequence? How did it affect her mentally, emotionally?
Because the next scene we immediately saw was her trying to get it on with Marlon Wayans, who gave a very respectable performance. But we saw how abusive he later became, and yet we were never given any reason why she would stay with him.
Jennifer Hudson's Oscar win was a fluke. As a supporting actor in Dreamgirls, the camera wasn't always on her. But here, she's front and centre, surrounded by very legit actors. And, very evidently, she couldn't hold her own. It was hard to tell what her emotions were when they don't show on her face.
Maybe the whole thing was just badly written. Or maybe Leisl Tommy just failed to tell the story. Or, maybe, the legendary Aretha Franklin had to approve the script and censored a lot of the harsher details. Maybe that's why it's so glossy. This is the same problem with Elton John's Rocketman.
No comments:
Post a Comment