PLOT: A biographical movie about Richard Williams, the father and coach of tennis greats Venus and Serena Williams.
REVIEW: King Richard is undoubtedly a movie about a “helicopter parent”, albeit one much different than many you may see angrily micromanaging their children from the sidelines of a Little League game. The subject, Richard Williams (Will Smith), may seem cut from that same cloth as those parents, especially when he shuttles his daughters Venus and Serena Williams (Saniyya Sidney and Demi Singleton) to run them through the ringers on the tennis court. But what sets him apart is how he behaves more like a coach than a drill instructor, and that he realizes that while tennis may make them superstars, being well-rounded human beings who put just as much focus on their education will make them great women.
And yet, while that makes him a father worth rooting for, his desire to make sure Venus, Serena, and his other daughters achieve their full potential is not just about them, but also a bit about his own self-worth too. This, in turn, makes his abject stubbornness in the face of professionals trying to help him and his daughters as frustrating as it is admirable, creating a complex portrait of a father not swaying in his belief that he knows what’s 100 percent best. Or, at least, it should paint a complex portrait of an undeniably fascinating man like Richard, but because director Reinaldo Marcus Green and writer Zach Baylin tend to focus much, much more of the 140-minute runtime on the aspects of the first paragraph, it’s very easy for King Richard to fall into the trap of the sports biopic that goes for simply inspiring and lightly entertaining than anything else substantial.
A major reason the movie never soars too high from the court is because Green seemed perfectly content keeping to a specific rhythm and cycle of plot points. From the beginning, with Williams making his rounds across a country club trying to sell a top-tier coach on taking on his daughters as students, a large chunk of the time is spent watching him meet with coaches, having to hear them say why they can’t them, and then Williams having to go back to the drawing board. When he is finally able to secure coaches – such as Paul Coen (Tony Goldwyn), and Rick Macci (Jon Bernthal) – and get a meeting with key figures in the sport, like Will Hodges (Dylan McDermott), much of those scenes are of Williams telling them why they’re wrong in wanting to coach his daughters like they would everyone else, and why they needed to do things his way and no other.
The same goes for the sequences with his daughters – both on and off the court – wherein he gives them unconventional, eccentric, but ultimately wise advice. This can be either having them throw their rackets across the court to, I don’t know, improve arm strength, maintaining a certain playing stance at all times, or even showing them Disney’s Cinderella to teach them lessons about what it means to stay humble. Like Williams, Green and Baylin seem to believe Williams is almost always in the right and never shy away from giving him time to say why. Between how he is with the coaches and with his daughters, the same thing remains clear and comes up again and again and again: Richard Williams is most often right, and it’s his way or the highway.
What’s better for the character in terms of making him a figure worth rooting for but worse for the movie’s narrative is that it’s difficult to prove Williams wrong in any of these cases. When it comes to the coaches, he’s not being stubborn and uncompromising in his vision for his own power play, but because he knows that as destined champions, his daughters will face more obstacles as Black women than others in this predominantly White, wealthy sport. While there is part of him that’s controlling his daughter’s trajectory for his own personal issues and needing to feel respected by others, for the most part, he truly is coming from a place of protection and love – and that’s more than enough for audiences to admire. But as a story that needs to fill nearly two-and-a-half hours, the constant showcase of Williams’ methods and need to adhere to a strict plan he wrote when his daughters were born plays like tap-dancing around the same ideas until, eventually, it comes to the heart-tugging final 30 minutes or so where the emotional barrier finally begin to fall.
What makes all of this tolerable is Smith’s undeniably powerful performance. Even when playing “normal” people in between roles in massive blockbusters, Smith gravitates towards men with larger-than-life personalities that make for compelling dramas (Ali, Pursuit of Happyness, Concussion). Playing a family man who has spent his life being kicked around, and is now dedicated to ensuring his daughter’s success, his role in King Richard is no different, and it’s easily among his best work. Even with his careful steps (Williams suffered a foot injury when he was younger) and hunched back, Smith gives Williams that much-needed stature to be the most dominant voice in the room. With a fast, salesmen-like Louisiana speech, Smith brings that expected bit of charm, supplying no small amount of humor that makes him all the more convincing to get on his side. I would be shocked if he was shut out on the awards circuit, especially because the movie as a whole seems tailored for a big, show-stopping performance. Smith certainly delivers that, commanding the screen with a performance that matches the massive persona it’s based on.
But even though this is a movie that is predominantly a showcase for the central actor, Smith is surrounded by a terrific ensemble that, alongside him, makes the less stellar storytelling mostly worth the experience. As Venus and Serena, Sidney and Singleton are tremendous young performers who dominate on the court, even though off the court their characters fall under the shadow of their father. Given that Serena wasn’t able to be coached by professionals like her sister, she is relegated to the sidelines while Sidney’s Venus gets to destroy her challengers. Bernthal too just about matches Smith’s screen presence as the mustachioed Massi. His nigh-unbreakable positivity is a stark contrast to his darker roles like that of The Punisher, and he makes a great foil to the immovable object that is Richard, challenging his decisions but always wanting the best for Venus. The only one who can really stand toe-to-toe with Williams is his wife, Oracene Price, played by the excellent Ellis. She gets one of the very best scenes in the film, properly dressing down Williams when it seems he’s limiting Venus too much, showing him the man he really is, forcing him to reconcile his insecurities.
These performances make an ultimately too long runtime with a repetitive structure engaging enough to stick with until the suitably gripping finale, with 14-year-old Venus taking on seasoned pro, Arantxa Sánchez Vicario (Marcela Zacarias). But as good as everyone is and as entertaining as some of it can be, it’s not all enough to mask the fact King Richard is a movie at odds with itself. Wanting to put a twist on the sports movie formula by wanting to explore the figure behind the superstars, Green’s execution never becomes interesting enough to be as compelling a movie as that could be, and he instead settles for the elements that make it a heart-warming crowd-pleaser. On those merits, it is a fine movie with exceptional performances, and I hope that serves up enough to score with audiences willing to sit there for what seemed like the entire length of a Wimbleton tournament.