“Respect” and the plight of finding decent biopics about musicians

“Respect” isn’t the worst musician biopic around, but most of the time, I’m not sure if there is a good one. The longer the movie went on - and it did go on - the more I was wracking my brain to think of a genuinely good, well-told life story of a musician. Any musician.

I started going as far back as “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and mulled “Amadeus” and “Immortal Beloved”. For sure, all classics, and “What’s Love Got to Do with It” has to be up there. Yeah, there are some great movies that also happen to be biographies of musicians (some more liberty-taking than others, but we’ll look at that later). 

I think the reason it’s hard to find many examples is because this sub-genre is a thorny one for a variety of reasons. If it’s about a popular musical figure in the past 10 to thirty years, there’s a good chance that their estate is going to want a measure of say in the product. Then, too, if they are or were a member of a popular ensemble, there are broader IP considerations at play. Even if the musician has been gone for some amount of time, it might be that record companies or holders of copyright might have some thoughts to share and protections from anything that my damage their property. 

However, there’s also another element at issue here. So many musicians whose bios are well-known have a kind of built-in series of “greatest hits” story beats that have to be hit. It goes without saying, as well, that the dead musician often is enshrined in a kind of hagiography lineage, regardless of any heinous acts on their part or how ugly their demise. The Presley Estate is highly unlikely to let anyone film an ending to his life where he pops a ton of pills and dies from drug-induced cardiac arrest. In the bathroom. 

But it’s not just the lurid or unsavory elements in a musician’s life that require expunging and seemingly affect the movie; in a lot of cases, it’s that the stories are in themselves often unfocused and straining under the imposition of the conceit that all the well-known bits have to be played. You could, in theory, leave out or minimize an artist’s affairs and perhaps still come up with a compelling narrative, if the framing is genuine and the script intelligent enough to produce a less-bloated production. And bloat many of these movies do.

It’s this latter idea that tanks “Respect”. Make no mistake that the Queen of Soul lived a remarkable and overflowingly full life. Trying to do it justice would take a serious multi-part documentary. So why attempt to stuff everything into a long film that serves nothing well (except the music, which is glorious)?

Because a) it’s a passion project; b) so much of her life does lend itself to cinematic adaptation; c) this is the best they could do. Sigh. 

Let me get this out of the way: there are no flies on the performers. You couldn’t ask for anyone better than Jennifer Hudson to play the role (and honestly, she may not be Aretha, but the woman can SING!). Everyone does the best they can with the dialog they’ve been dealt. And it’s mediocre, at best. There are no dimensions or shades to the characters and when Forest Whittaker can’t breathe life into C.L. Franklin, her father, then there’s something wrong. The only stand-out beside Hudson (who’s often saddled with looking either a little miffed or beatific at surprisingly odd moments and never given much of a chance to explore the richness of the woman she’s portraying) is Mary J. Bilge as Dina Washington. She’s not on screen for much but when she is, she brings a fully realized character and manages to camp it up in scenes that are in dire need of camp. In fact, the entire movie is almost completely unintended camp.

Is it just the script? Nope. The direction from Liesl Tommy who’s donor some fine work on “Walking Dead” and “Jessica Jones” is an example that transitioning to feature films is not as easy as you might think. A lot of the pacing is what you might expect from a perfunctory TV-Movie or a Lifetime flick. There is a steady rhythm of going from one “character building” moment to the next crisis to another “character building” moment, punctuated by the obligatory “self realization” beats, ending in the catharsis of our heroin rising up from the ashes of alcoholism, just in time to release her gospel album and the freeze framed paragraphs telling us of the revered icon’s accomplishments. Cut to Aretha Franklin’s performance at Lincoln Center before the Obamas and you should have not a dry eye in the house, right?

I found myself having to stifle snickers and guffaws at several points. Moments that should have elicited some degree of sympathy or concern were lost in direction so formulaic, I didn’t have to know much about Aretha’s life to know what was coming. This was fan service but even as a fan, I was insulted by a sluggish, lazy film. Respect? Aretha deserves more than this.

Once again, thanks for reading and let me know if you have a film you’d like me to take a look at. Check out my Patreon page and if you feel so inclined and want to see more, support is always appreciated, either one time or monthly.