Respect charts Aretha Franklin’s rise to becoming the Queen of Soul

► Respect is in UK cinemas from 10 September.

“Music will save your life”, a young Aretha Franklin is told by her piano teacher, as she struggles with childhood abuse and the burden of musical genius in a man’s world – this becomes a key theme throughout Liesl Tommy’s musical biopic of the Queen of Soul, which charts her formative years through to her time at Columbia Records and then Atlantic.

Among a generally superb ensemble cast – including Mary J. Blige, Skye Dakota Turner, Marlon Wayans and Forest Whitaker – the shining light at the heart of the piece is Jennifer Hudson, who plays Franklin and demonstrates her craft as an actor and vocalist once again. It is no surprise that Aretha Franklin chose Hudson to play her onscreen counterpart; she gives a beautifully skilled interpretation of Franklin’s development from a ‘caged bird’ figure, burdened by personal demons, into a liberated yet complex music icon – it is certainly her best performance since 2006’s Dreamgirls. Tracey Scott Wilson’s excellent screenplay, though at some points formulaic in its ‘troubled starlet’ narrative, explores Franklin’s character with nuance and depth, intertwining the personal with the political in the form of patriarchal oppression and the particularities of African American history.

In Detroit in the early 50s, a young Franklin (played by Dakota Turner with maturity and stirring vocals) navigates a troubled domestic life with her parents (Audra McDonald and Forest Whitaker) and suffers sexual abuse. The narrative moves forward as Aretha (now played by Hudson) grows to adulthood. Her trajectory from introverted jazz singer into a figure of Black and female emancipation is chronicled through recreations of thrilling musical performances. Interwoven with the music are Franklin’s relationships with family and lovers – in particular her violent husband and manager Ted White, played by Wayans, whose performance of fragility and caustic jealousy is impressive.

The scenes detailing Franklin’s creative process and musical performances are the most engrossing; Tommy’s direction brings an intimacy and realism to the glamour of Hudson’s extravagant musical numbers, which are bathed in kaleidoscopic light and dressed up with meticulous costume design. Underneath the sumptuous aesthetics is the focal point of salvation through song. Kramer Morgenthau’s camera follows Franklin as an ingénue vocalist at Columbia, peering through the glass screen of the recording studio to suggest how trapped she is by controlling men; while at her peak at Atlantic, performing anthems in feathered and beaded gowns, she is filmed in close-up, sometimes from below, streams of light framing her expressions of uninhibited joy and abandon. One sequence that stands out is the development of Franklin’s iconic Otis Redding cover ‘Respect’. Reworked in an improvised early morning session between Aretha and her sisters Carolyn (Hailey Kilgore) and Erma (Saycon Sengbloh), this ad hoc version then transitions into a jam session in the studio, before morphing into a polished, unrestrained concert performance where Hudson interprets Franklin’s mezzo-soprano tones with her own flamboyant flourish.

Alongside the pizzazz of performance, Respect pays careful attention to humanising Franklin and highlighting the specific trauma she experienced, offering a woman-centred approach to the well-worn tropes of childhood damage within the trappings of fame. At one point, during a period of self-destruction, a dishevelled and vulnerable Hudson is able to imbue Franklin with a sense of repressed emotional hardship, while brief flashbacks convey shadowy images from Franklin’s buried past.

According to Barack Obama, “American history wells up when Aretha sings”: a sense of that is perfectly captured in the film’s retelling of the recording of her greatest album, Amazing Grace, at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles in 1972. The attention to detail is spot on, from Franklin’s period mint-green ensemble down to the beads of sweat on Hudson’s forehead as she croons the title track. The most striking aspect of this section, though, is the space and care Tommy and Morgenthau’s camera gives to Franklin’s relationship with the crowd, who are positioned as companions in a religious ceremony, participating in the meaningful creation of Franklin’s gospel soul music, which evoked Black America’s history of triumph over pain. This quality – of portraying Franklin as fallible while paying tribute to the spiritual quality of her performances – is Respect’s greatest success. Maya Angelou said, ‘People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.’ But Respect largely captures both what Franklin did and how she made people feel, with supreme charm and soul.