Suddenly what starts off as one of the film’s main mysteries and perhaps Franklin’s biggest childhood trauma ends up as a throwaway line, never to be revisited again.
Otherwise timid or thankful, Franklin (Jennifer Hudson) responds to Washington’s probing about the paternity of her sons, the first born when she was only 12, with a mix of incredulity and imposing silence.
Early on in “Respect,” the latest onscreen retelling of Aretha Franklin’s story, the aging jazz and R&B star Dinah Washington asks her protégée, “Child, are you ever going to tell us who the daddy is?”
