I was desperate to love it, but it proved exceedingly contrived, cloying, and suffocating.
Way too fabricated, overbearing, heavy-handed.
Yes, yes, I cried in the final five minutes, but only because that was Aretha. I could read factoids about her life and listen to her sing all day [and night] long, whereas this film about her was—at two-and-a-half excruciating hours—fully 90 minutes too long and overrun by actors chewing the scenery.
I sighed and harrumphed so uncontrollably that it's a miracle they didn't toss me out on my ear!
NEXT!!
