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Premieres on Sunday, March 21, 2021 @ 9 PM ET on National Geographic, starring Cynthia Erivo and Courtney B. Vance.
71 on Metacritic so far with 6 reviews. Repeated praise for Erivo in the title role, but the surrounding film paints a somewhat dire view of her life story.
Trailer here:
Discuss.
ReplyVery interested to see what the awards chances of this one are. There seems to be controversy brewing around how the producers interacted with the relatives of Franklin.
ReplyCopy URLSolidarity with the striking writers. Pay them the wages they are owed for bringing us the content we are all on here because of!
Episode Title: “Respect”
Synopsis: Aretha travels to Muscle Shoals in 1967 to record her first album with Atlantic Records; after losing her surrogate mother, Little Re braves her first solo in 1953 in her father’s church.
Episode Title: “Until the Real Thing Comes Along”
Synopsis: Aretha catches the attention of Jerry Wexler at Atlantic Records in 1966; Little Re has her first touring experience on the Gospel Circuit in 1954 with C.L. Franklin and meets her idol, Clara Ward.
Discuss.
ReplyCopy URLCynthia Erivo is the Performer of the Week on TVLine: https://tvline.com/2021/03/27/cynthia-erivo-genius-aretha-performance/
ReplyCopy URLWatched the pilot episode. This might be a National Geographic Channel thing, since I didn’t watch the other “Genius” installments, but the episode had a reenactment feel that cheapened it in stretches, particularly the flashback sequences where things felt too broad. Courtney B. Vance was also really broad in those sequences as the reverend father, which isn’t usually his acting style. Cynthia Erivo has the voice, clearly, and she shines in the music creation scenes where the “genius” of how the music starts is center stage. But she bears no resemblance to Aretha Franklin physically or in stature, so that took me out of most of her other scenes. Lots of “Behind the Music”-level broad strokes with controlling men, sibling rivalries, child prodigy woes, adultery, racism, alcoholism, death, etc. It’s interesting on the level of lifting the veil up on Franklin’s “dirty laundry” as it’s referred to here, and also likely why the Franklin estate isn’t supporting this treatment of the legendary singer’s life. That might be a good thing, since family involvement can mean a whitewashing of the subject’s life, or a bad thing where the story is completely bungled and mismanaged. I’m curious where this all goes regardless.
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