(ANSA) - LOCARNO, AUG 14 - Interpreting a legend of music like Aretha Franklin, with the responsibility also of having been chosen by the soul icon and activist in the first place for civil rights: this is the challenge, already won, according to the judgments of the critics from Jennifer Hudson, who is one of the strong contenders for the 2022 Oscars with Respect, the biopic signed by filmmaker Liesl Tommy. After its US debut on August 13, the film arrives in various European countries and for the closure of the Locarno Film Festival in PiazzaGrande. The result of a work of preparation supervised for a long time by Franklin herself, and with the consent of the family, Respect, which will arrive in Italy on October 7 with Eagle Pictures, despite having aroused perplexity for the very linear staging and being respectful of the limits of the hagiographic,is based on the magnetic performance of Jennifer Hudson, born in 1981, already an Oscar winner as a supporting actress in 2007 for the adaptation of the musical Dreamgirls.
With her a masterful cast, led by Forest Whitaker and Audra McDonald in the roles of Aretha's father and mother; Mary J.
Blige in that of the soul diva Dinah Washington, a friend of the family; Marlon Wayans as singer Ted White's first husband, Marc Maron for the record company that brought Aretha Franklin to success, Jerry Wexler.
Jennifer Hudson had met Aretha Franklin over a decade before the Respect project was born: "We met in New York and one of the first things he said to me was' You'll win another Oscar, playing me, right? - she told Entertainment Weekly, l 'actress who met the singer several times during the preparation of the film between 2016 and 2018. In the years when Aretha Franklin started, "women were often treated as children. On the other hand, being like Aretha, able to build her own path, without having bosses, was something totally new. I often repeat that men love to destroy what they cannot conquer and it is something that Mama Franklin taught me ". (ANSA).