Mr. Movie: ‘Respect’ a music lover’s treat; ‘Night House’ a real yawner

“Respect” is a biopic about the early life of singer Aretha Franklin. The story follows her story from 10-years old to the recording and release of her gospel album, Amazing Grace in 1972. Woven into Franklin’s story is sometimes diva, irresponsible behavior, marital conflict and alcoholism.

And — of course — phenomenal success.

Like Whitney Houston, Tina Turner and a lot of lady singers, Franklin fell in love with the wrong guy. Ted White was a nasty-dispositioned, violent, womanizing control freak. He ran her completely.

So did her father and womanizer, Reverend C.L. Franklin.

Franklin’s life wasn’t much fun but her voice and her music were amazing. This is where “Respect” works, and works very, very well and it leads us to the music of Jennifer Hudson who stars as Franklin. The lady can flat sing. I do have a small complaint. Her voice is more quavery than Franklin’s. To me she sounds more like Whitney Houston than Aretha.

Minor complaint aside, her versions of Franklin’s songs are incredible.

Hudson’s acting isn’t close to as good as her singing. Not that it matters, her vocals, Franklin’s music and the work of her co-stars carry the movie. Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker (“The Last King of Scotland” in 2006) does her dad and Marlon Wayans plays Ted.

Whitaker is always good and is his usual brilliant here. Wayans is mostly known for dumb comedy movies and the 1990s TV hit, “In Living Color.” It turns out that he’s a surprisingly good actor and his portrayal of White is intense.

Wayans’ performance is the best acting in the movie.

The telling of Franklin’s early years was crafted by Callie Khouri. She created TV’s “Nashville” and picked up an Oscar for her screenplay of “Thelma and Louise” in 1991. Khouri passed the screenplay duties onto TV writer, producer and Primetime Emmy nominee, Tracey Scott Wilson.

Outside of the early child molestation scenes, Khouri’s story, Wilson’s screenplay and rookie director, Liesl Tommy’s movie is highly sanitized. It’s almost like a public relations flack helped pen the script.

Franklin’s real life was a lot, lot darker.

This — again — brings us back to Hudson. She owns the movie. And even though she won an Oscar for “Dream Girls” the same year Whitaker won his, I’m skeptical about her acting.

It’s her singing that makes the movie, and it’s the singing that gets all the — dare I say? — respect.

Rated PG-13 for language and mature themes. It’s playing at the AMC Classic Kennewick 12 and at the Fairchild Cinemas Pasco, Queensgate 12 and Southgate 10.

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Night House

Rebecca Hall stars as Beth. Her husband, Owen walked down the steps to the dock on the lake where they live, jumped in a row boat, rowed out a bit and shot himself in the head. A note he left said he was protecting her.

From what?

She’s not sure. They were so much in love and built the house together. So Beth is really angry. Who wouldn’t be? The love of her life blew himself away. As Beth explores the protecting comment from the suicide note she finds her faithful hubby might not have been so faithful. She finds bunches of pictures of women who look almost like her.

That’s one puzzle to figure out. The other has to do with some sort of a reverse version of their house. Owen was fascinated by it and had those plans with the plans they used to build the house.

On paper all this sounds a lot more interesting than what you get on the screen.

The only good scenes in the movie come from her anger. Beth — who is a school teacher — confronts a parent wanting their child to get a better grade. She also has a night out with other teachers and explains the suicide.

Both scenes are intense and uncomfortable and very well done.

Hall pouts and sulks through the movie as Beth mourns her lost love. She also has weird dreams that are dreams but not. Hall dons a super-serious look for those scenes. There isn’t much more. The film also wastes the talents of two Primetime Emmy nominees, Sarah Goldberg for “Barry” in 2018 and Vondie Curtis-Hall who got an Emmy nod for “Black Nativity” in 2014.

Sadly, the two screenwriters — Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski — didn’t put a lot of dialogue into their script and director, David Bruckner (2007’s “The Signal”) didn’t put a lot of tension into the flick.

Other than the two great scenes mentioned earlier, their movie is a yawner. Night house, day house, no matter what house it’s definitely not a fun house. Not even a little bit. For a horror story it’s not scary, not intense and not close to interesting.

Definitely recommended for the sleep deprived.

Rated R for mature themes and violence. It’s playing at the Fairchild Cinemas Pasco, Queensgate 12 and Southgate 10 and at the AMC Classic Kennewick 12.

Rating: 1 out of 5

This story was originally published August 20, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Mr. Movie: ‘Respect’ a music lover’s treat; ‘Night House’ a real yawner."