Respect
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) | Release Date: August 13, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
61
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 43 Critic Reviews
Positive:
23
Mixed:
19
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleAug 8, 2021
Respect has everything you could hope for in a musical biopic. It has a good story and great songs and, best of all, it has someone in the lead role who can put those songs over. Read full review
90
Film ThreatAlan NgAug 12, 2021
Liesl Tommy extracts the proper emotion from every scene, and the music is like truffles on top of a fantastic meal. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperAug 10, 2021
Respect is filled with memorable supporting turns, including Audra McDonald as Aretha’s mother and Saycon Sengbloh and Hailey Kilgore as her sisters, who were often in the background in more ways than one — but an old-fashioned show-business biopic such as this rises and falls on the talents of the lead, and it’s hard to imagine anyone in the world doing more justice to the legacy of Aretha Franklin than Jennifer Hudson. Read full review
80
IGNCarla RenataAug 18, 2021
Director Liesl Tommy and co-writer Tracy Scott Wilson provide a shocking backdrop for Franklin’s life, and Hudson balances all this with a skill that’s worthy of a second Oscar nomination. It feels more like a Broadway-ready musical than a biopic, but that doesn’t take away from the impact of the performances. Read full review
80
Vanity FairCassie da CostaAug 17, 2021
Director Liesl Tommy and screenwriter Tracey Scott Wilson do not let reverence for the legend trap them in an unimaginative limbo. In following Franklin from ages 8 to 29, they place a musically expressive yet interpersonally mysterious woman within multiple vital contexts, and with visual and sonic specificity and flair. Read full review
80
TimeStephanie ZacharekAug 12, 2021
Respect honors the utilitarian nature of songwriting, and of making art in general. But the movie honors subtler elements of Franklin’s nature, too—as much as we can know of it—most notably her guardedness, born of necessity. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyAug 8, 2021
A powerful account of self-actualization spanning 20 formative years, Liesl Tommy’s biopic is also an intimate gift of love, rich in complexity, spirituality, Black pride and feminist grit rooted not in didactic speeches but in authentic experience. The ageless music, of course, is the galvanizing force, but it’s the personal struggle behind it that makes the story so affecting. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedAug 13, 2021
Jennifer Hudson is so spectacular in Respect, the Aretha Franklin biopic, that she makes you overlook, ignore and eventually forgive the film’s multitudinous flaws. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comOdie HendersonAug 13, 2021
Whether it’s in a nightgown or in the full, glorious regalia Aretha Franklin adorned in her concert appearances, Hudson performs with the same tireless intensity Re was known for throughout her career. It’s a damn good performance and this is a damn entertaining movie. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliAug 12, 2021
While it’s easy to quibble about the choices of omission and inclusion made by screenwriter Tracey Scott Wilson and whether a more adventurous, unconventional approach might have been a better fit for the central character’s personality, Hudson renders such criticism moot. Her performance as Aretha Franklin is more than worth the price of admission. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsAug 12, 2021
Respect runs into trouble when its own respect toward Aretha Franklin, the woman who gave us the voice of a century, settles for garden-variety adoration. But longtime stage director Liesl Tommy’s debut feature, working from a screenplay by dramatist and screenwriter Tracey Scott Wilson, offers plenty of compensations amid its biopic conventions. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayAug 11, 2021
Respect is nominally a movie about a woman finding her voice, but more accurately it’s about her taking full possession of it. Read full review
75
ConsequenceCarys AndersonAug 11, 2021
All of the events of Respect are to be expected. No new truths about the Queen of Soul are unearthed. But the film itself is well-crafted, and each performance brings storied characters to life. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreAug 8, 2021
Stately as it is, Respect never quite becomes a “great film,” but Hudson, Whitaker, McDonald, Burgess and Maron ensure it’s never less than an entertaining one, a musical biography that gives the Queen of Soul her royal due. Read full review
70
ABC NewsPeter TraversAug 13, 2021
This by-the-numbers Aretha Franklin biopic is all about Jennifer Hudson doing Aretha proud. And does she ever. As the legendary Queen of Soul, Hudson does not, will not, cannot hit a wrong note, creating a respectful tribute to both their radiant talents. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangAug 13, 2021
Respect is fine, fitfully rousing, even respectable. And sometimes, it’s something more. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisAug 12, 2021
Respect succeeds in doing exactly what is expected of it. You may argue with this or that filmmaking choice and regret its overly smooth edges, but it does give you a sense of Franklin as a historical figure, a crossover success story and a full-throttle, fur-draped diva. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeAug 8, 2021
Though Respect can feel a little soft in the drama department, it delivers the added pleasure of hearing Hudson re-create Franklin’s key songs, from the early jazz standards she covered for Columbia to her reinvention of the Otis Redding single that lends the film its name. Read full review
65
TheWrapElizabeth WeitzmanAug 8, 2021
Even when the movie stumbles, Hudson’s bravura performance — and those extraordinary songs — steady its soul. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyAug 11, 2021
The turbulence of the life and the wondrousness of the talent are an irresistible combination. Striking a balance between the two isn’t easy, but at its conclusion Respect finds a way to bring together woman and artist in a way that does justice to both. Read full review
63
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenAug 11, 2021
We get some great music in Respect, but only a surface sense of the rest. Read full review
63
USA TodayBrian TruittAug 9, 2021
Similar to other recent musical biopic vehicles like Judy and The United States vs. Billie Holiday, Respect never reaches the greatness of its shining star. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineKeith WatsonAug 9, 2021
When Jennifer Hudson is singing her heart out, not so much approximating Aretha’s voice as channeling her soul, the effect is transportive. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Mark KermodeSep 12, 2021
Despite top-notch period production design and a couple of convincing studio workout sequences (I was reminded of the brilliant Love & Mercy as Aretha tells her bassist to ditch Alabama for Harlem), the drama rarely has the fiery spark its subject demands. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeySep 11, 2021
There’s nothing at all wrong with Respect, which is colourful and pretty well played, other than an overall air of caution – and the thing about Aretha Franklin’s voice is that it really swung for the rafters. Read full review
60
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeSep 10, 2021
What Respect does have going for it is Jennifer Hudson and some stirring musical sequences. Just as these films have become loaded with cliches, the reviews have too often lazily argued that “[Lead Actor X] just about saves the day”. Well, here we are again. Read full review
60
Rolling StoneK. Austin CollinsAug 19, 2021
[Franklin's] music blows the movie out of the water — and the movie, at its best, is wise to let itself get blown away. Read full review
60
The New YorkerRichard BrodyAug 18, 2021
The filmmakers of Respect aim at a wide audience with an altogether more obvious and calculating contrivance. They don’t grant the person, the personality, the character of Aretha the same originality, complexity, or substance that the real-life Franklin had; they leave all the specifics on Hudson’s shoulders, and her energetic, detailed, and focussed performance nearly papers over the missing heart of the movie. Read full review
60
CNNBrian LowryAug 12, 2021
Earnest to a fault, Respect spells out a handsome tribute to Aretha Franklin, with Jennifer Hudson and her peerless singing pipes as its formidable anchor. Yet this biography never fully sparks to life, as the Queen of Soul fights in episodic fashion to establish and later protect her musical legacy from the domineering men in her life. Read full review
60
EmpireHelen O'HaraAug 10, 2021
A perfectly serviceable biopic with good performances, which goes some way to explaining Franklin’s genius as a musician and a star, but one that isn’t nearly as transcendent as its subject deserves. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyMary SollosiAug 10, 2021
It isn't nearly as compelling a movie as Franklin was a singer, but while the film never fully captures her brilliance, it does at least effectively allude to it. Read full review
50
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiAug 13, 2021
The supporting voices are sublime. Alongside Hudson are Audra McDonald, Tituss Burgess and Broadway’s Hailey Kilgore and Saycon Sengbloh. But the music, absent a believable 1960s sense of place or real concert atmosphere, doesn’t rouse so much as please, not unlike the familiar movie it’s a part of. Respect settles for being respectable. Read full review
50
Original-CinLiam LaceyAug 12, 2021
Respect, the new movie starring Jennifer Hudson as the late soul singer Aretha Franklin, proves once again that musical biopics have become the tribute mediocrity pays to talent. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubVikram MurthiAug 10, 2021
Franklin’s real life was obviously rife with drama worthy of the big screen, but Wilson and TV-trained director Liesl Tommy take a comprehensive, arrhythmic approach that treats major life events like soapy episodes or grist for the pop-psych mill. Read full review
50
The Associated PressMark KennedyAug 10, 2021
The script by Tracey Scott Wilson (Fosse/Verdon) is a collection of scenes that don’t add up to much, never really building and interrupted — by necessity, of course — with overly long music sequences. This film needed someone to sharpen and clarify. Read full review
50
Screen DailyTim GriersonAug 8, 2021
There’s no question that director Liesl Tommy and star Jennifer Hudson have approached this project with reverence, hoping to highlight the late singer’s importance both as a cultural figure and a symbol of her era. But the cliches that usually attend such biopics — specifically, the need to simplify an individual’s demons and traumas into easily digestible dramatic beats — are especially frustrating here, leaving this overly earnest picture lacking the vibrancy of its dynamic subject. Read full review
50
IndieWireKate ErblandAug 8, 2021
So much of Respect is about Aretha wanting more — and so desiring to work for it — and it’s disheartening that this well-meaning exploration of her legacy seems doomed to inspire that same hunger in its audience. Read full review
42
The PlaylistJason BaileyAug 8, 2021
There’s little in Respect that one couldn’t glean from a Wikipedia scan, and in terms of her work, time would be better-spent re-watching “Amazing Grace” or revisiting her albums. Read full review
40
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyOct 1, 2021
This project should have been relatively straightforward: to provide a worthy showcase for Hudson, who is tremendous in exactly the kind of way that grabs the attention of awards show voting bodies. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 9, 2021
This is a long, laborious movie whose every scene feels hackneyed at some level and which is always drifting towards its own misjudged secular gospel of simplistic salvation and life lessons learned. But an artist’s life is more complicated than that. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleJenny NulfAug 9, 2021
The casting is the only part of the movie that feels genuine, with Hudson channeling the Dreamgirls emotive performance that earned her an early career Oscar. Read full review
40
The GuardianCharles BramescoAug 9, 2021
In the leading role as the queen of soul, Jennifer Hudson comports herself as well as could be hoped considering the material she’s been given, which demands that she reinvigorate a rote character arc with her own passions. Read full review
30
New York Magazine (Vulture)Robert DanielsAug 12, 2021
The preceding two-plus hours of this 145-minute slog — Tommy’s threadbare hodgepodge of bad impressions, gratuitous filmmaking, and even worse depictions of mental health — isn’t even a shadow of the real natural woman. Read full review
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