Respect Movie Review

The 2021 musical/drama Respect follows the journey of music icon Aretha Franklin throughout the years. Jennifer Hundson played lead in the film, being personally picked by Aretha Franklin herself. The movie goes into debt about Aretha’s past life and obstacles that happen during. It first starts off with Aretha’s dad, C.L. Franklin (Forest Whitaker) is going to get young Aretha (Sky Dakota Turner) to sing for a House event. Happily, she goes and sings in front of her father’s friends and everyone is having a nice time. Childhood scenes both show the joy and trauma that impacted her adulthood. There was a fair amount of sinfulness in Aretha’s story, and the movie goes into depth about her relationship with Ted White (Marlon Waynes). Ted helped Aretha start off her first career but didn’t help her mentality. During her life, she truly involved herself in church and in the Civil Rights movement. According to the movie, she states that gospel music helped her at her darkest times so she involved gospel in her music. Her most famous song “Respect”, which became an anthem for political movements at that time. “It [reflected] the need of a nation, the need of the average man and woman in the street, the businessman, the mother, the fireman, the teacher—everyone wanted respect,” Aretha said. “It was also one of the battle cries of the Civil Rights movement. The song took on monumental significance.” At the end of the film it shows Jennifer Hudson singing “Amazing Grace” when showing all of Aretha’s accomplishments. Overall this new film has gained a lot of positive recognition, showing the power in one’s journey.