King Richard Review

King Richard is the most complex simple film that this reviewer has had the privilege of watching in a while. On one hand, it is a grounded, no-frills sport biopic that focuses on the actual sport. On the other, it weaves in complex topics such as racial discrimination, overbearing male patriarchs and the daddy-knows-best syndrome. It is not always successful at what it tries to do, but this is a film with its heart in the right place.

Director Reinaldo Marcus Green's movie has been accused of holding Richard Williams in reverence, to the point of being hagiographic, and we must say some of these accusations do hold water. Green's retelling of this classic underdog tale has little conflict, especially considering the eccentric nature of its titular character.

Richard Williams (Will Smith) is THE man with a plan™. He knows his daughters, Venus (Saniyya Sidney) and Serena (Demi Singleton), are going to be stars even before they are born, and he will do anything for them. His eccentricity is only matched by his tenacity, as he fights to get his gifted daughters what they deserve - at times even forgetting who he set out to do these things for. Clashing with everyone - his wife, his daughters' coaches, the media, and other tennis parents - Richard even gets the reputation of being an overbearing man who makes everything about himself.

With quiet support from the girls' mother, Oracene "Brandy" Price (Aunjanue Ellis), Richard sets out to do the unthinkable for a working class black man from Compton, California - breaking into the big leagues of a predominantly white sport, tennis. And his ambition is not limited to just breaking into the business, it is to fulfill his daughters' dreams of being the best in the business.

At its core, King Richard is one man's journey to have the world respect his daughters because he himself was denied that respect. It is not the first movie to give us a man who wants to succeed in life through his children, but it is a deft and nuanced take on this trope. It also shows his shortcomings - his difficult relationships with those around him, his egoistic bravado that is addressed by his wife in perhaps the film's most brilliant scene, and his unwillingness to do things that aren't in his "plan".

And that is perhaps the issue with King Richard - it sometimes relegates Venus and Serena, and by extension Oracene, to being bystanders in their own tale. Will Smith's towering and Oscar-winning performance as Richard Williams is the most vulnerable we have seen him since The Pursuit of Happyness. It is fascinating to watch Smith, the actor, in his element, as opposed to Smith, the Hollywood star. He is a joy to behold. However, the script holds him back often. It feels that Smith is willing to toe the line of being unlikeable because it is one shade of the nuanced character he is portraying, but the script refuses to let him go completely - and never lets him fully flex his acting chops.

The movie is much kinder to the sisters - especially Saniyya Sidney's Venus, as Richard's upbringing allows her to focus on tennis while leading a relatively normal life as a teenager. The Williams' controversial decision to refrain from playing tournaments in junior tennis and focusing only on training was tough for young Venus, but it allows Sidney to be upbeat and confident in her abilities - Richard in a scene is shown tearing into a reporter once for questioning Venus' confidence.

Aunjolie Ellis has the unenvious task of playing the patient wife/mother who doesn't get enough credit from her egoistic husband. Ellis plays the role to perfection, and is the only one to call out Richard's selfish behaviour. Demi Singleton plays the younger Serena, who has to deal with the unfairness of being in her older sister's shadow, and manages to portray the anger and dismay fairly well. Jon Bernthal has an interesting role as the coach who puts up with Richard Williams' eccentricity, and he seems to be having a blast playing it.

Kris Bowers' score is good, if unmemorable. Beyoncé composed an original song for King Richard, "Be Alive", which got nominated for several awards and is easily the standout song in the movie's soundtrack.

The film shows real locations from the Williams sisters' lives, and Robert Elswit's cinematography really shows us the differences between them and the overall "whiteness" of tennis - its country clubs with their high-end food, international coaching academies, and the entitled behaviour of some of Venus' opponents. Where the visuals struggle however, are in the recreation of the sisters' games - they don't feel compelling or entertaining enough. We understand it is a tall task to capture the Williams sisters' athleticism or skill in a mere film, but we expected it to be more entertaining at least.

Overall, King Richard is a safe recommendation, okay for everyone to watch. There are a couple of harrowing depictions of race in the beginning of the movie, but it quickly passes into more breathable territory and shies away from genuine discomfort. Watch it for the acting, at the very least.