King Richard
As the driven and often insufferable tennis coach Richard Williams, Will Smith is (deservedly) winning the best reviews of his career.
Where there’s a Will…
There was nothing regal in the upbringing of Richard Williams. Born in the ghetto and routinely picked on and beaten up in the street, he resolved that his five daughters would have a better life than the one he was handed. So he drew up a plan, a detailed, long-term strategy that would guarantee his girls the best that life had to offer. Accordingly, he engineered every step of their education, their entertainment, the food they put in their mouths and every spare moment. And nobody – however threatening, persuasive or important they might be – was going to steer him away from his meticulous blueprint. In a hard, competitive white world, he had decided that his two youngest daughters Venus and Serena Williams would become the greatest female tennis players in the world.
If half the story unfolded in Reinaldo Marcus Green’s King Richard were true, it would be astonishing. Yet the film, executive produced by Venus and Serena Williams themselves, is actually based on the man, now 79, who challenged the status quo of international tennis. The current favourite to win the Oscar for best actor next year, Will Smith delivers a larger-than-life, warts-and-all performance of a singular human being. Arrogant, stubborn, single-minded, obsessed, outspoken and confrontational, Richard Williams is depicted as a tyrant with a heart. Whether forcing his girls to practice in the rain at night or punishing them for bragging about their extraordinary achievements, he was determined that they would become exceptional.
Any story of prodigious talent and self-belief – particularly if based on real people – makes for compelling cinema. And ‘King’ Richard’s unstoppable journey against impossible odds ensures lump-in-the-throat viewing. Masterly side-stepping the clichés of the sporting biography, King Richard succeeds as engrossing drama because the accent is as much on character (in both senses of the word) as it is about the thrill of winning. And Will Smith has strong support from Aunjanue Ellis as his wife Oracene, Saniyya Sidney and Demi Singleton as Venus and Serena, and a cast-against-type Jon Bernthal as the exasperated tennis coach Rick Macci. Tennis has always been a hard sell at the multiplex, but hopefully with Will Smith’s name above the title and favourable word-of-mouth, this will find the audience it deserves.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Will Smith, Aunjanue Ellis, Saniyya Sidney, Demi Singleton, Tony Goldwyn, Jon Bernthal, Andy Bean, Kevin Dunn, Craig Tate, Mikayla LaShae Bartholomew, Brad Greenquist, Dylan McDermott.
Dir Reinaldo Marcus Green, Pro Tim White, Trevor White and Will Smith, Screenplay Zach Baylin, Ph Robert Elswit, Pro Des William Arnold and Wynn Thomas, Ed Pamela Martin, Music Kris Bowers, Costumes Sharen Davis, Sound Richard King, Dialect coach Jessica Drake, Dental prosthetics Art Sakamoto.
Westbrook Studios/Star Thrower Entertainment/Keepin' It Reel-Warner Bros.
144 mins. USA. 2021. Rel: 19 November 2021. Cert. 12A .
