YM “DivaQueenB” Merriwether

As a current Detroiter, I am a huge Aretha Fan I found the movie to be not very good or worth the movie. Felt at times like a Hallmark movie with Jennifer basically playing Effie White again from dream girls. Down to style , substance and speaking cadence. Same character traits. I never really saw or heard past Jennifer. Unlike a Jamie playing Ray or a Cuba playing OJ as they transcended the character through mannerisms and method to achieve great personifications without necessarily looking exactly like person; Jennifer only gave blank stares or canned responses. She played Franklin without much emotion. Maybe Aretha was like this in daily life however, it doesn't make for good big screen time. Many things were left unexplored. They kept referring to a demon many times during the movie as if she had a demon within her and I'm assuming that the demon equated to drinking and or food as it was well known that she had an issue with drinking , overeating and smoking. However after mentioning. THE DEMON in the movie numerous times over and over I felt as if I was looking at a lower budget Tyler Perry movie. There was way more to her life and it ended at the gospel concert in the early seventies. The movie felt incomplete. There were so many more things that it could have been explored and the filmmaker would lead you places let you stand there for a moment but never absorb anything and then never come back to that particular subject -again , that's frustrating

I appreciated the story. However, it felt weighed down by Lee. This style cinema worked well for Lee late 80s and early 90s but at times feels dated. I'm on the fence with this one