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
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
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