Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
With Smith in charge, Williams sister film centers story on dad
“King Richard” redirects the tennis phenomenon of Venus and Serena Williams away from the sisters and toward their father, Richard. He is played by Will Smith in a performance guaranteed an Oscar nomination because the entire film is built to support that outcome.
What we have here is a moderately good sports biopic with a very fine performance at center court. Secondarily, in terms of screen time, debut screenwriter Zach Baylin’s enthusiastic account also manages some of what Richard’s then-wife, Oracene, (Aunjanue Ellis) did to parent, coach, cajole and shape these two particular daughters into ferocious competitors.
The results will please a wide audience. That said: Even the verifiably true material in “King Richard” has a way of coming off like a Hollywood movie.
Richard is a man with a plan, and an early rejection montage in “King Richard” chronicles his efforts to finance his daughter’s training. Meantime, rain or shine, night and day, father and daughters drill on grubby public courts in their Compton neighborhood. Time and again, Richard suffers physical beatings and death threats at gunpoint from the local gangbangers who come sniffing around Serena and Venus.
From there Richard recommits to his plan, and director Reinaldo Marcus Green recommits to his movie’s familiar blueprint for success. The chapters flip by, efficiently. The girls flower under their first professional coach, Paul Cohen (Tony Goldwyn). Then, an impasse, followed by a relocation of the family to Florida. There, coach Rick Macci (Jon Bernthal) becomes a family friend. The debates are intense, with Venus getting all the initial focus.
The film feels like a relay race, with the story dominated for a long time by Richard’s homespun, unerring wisdom, travails and success. Then it hands off to Venus, as she rises like a rocket. Then, a batonpass to Serena. A lot of it works in spite of the writing. Frustratingly, “King Richard” blands out the personality differences in Venus (Saniyya Sidney)and Serena (Demi Singleton). The movie makes no apologies about being a loving portrait of Richard. I couldn’t shake the feeling the key Williamses were being marginalized in their own story.
Richard’s rougher edges and harsher parenting and training impulses have been sanded down to a nice, smooth surface.
That’s a shame because Smith is not just a movie star. He’s an extremely savvy dramatic actor. “King Richard” is one sort: a subject-approved, by-the-numbers celebration of tennis titans who stand alone, together. Maybe I just wanted more of their story, along with Richard’s. Maybe that’s unfair to this movie. But for related reasons, assuming they might’ve felt that way at least once in their childhoods, I wouldn’t have minded just one cutaway shot of the girls rolling their eyes for a half-second during one of their father’s lengthy life lessons.
In 1997 Richard Williams told The New York Times: ‘‘I started like most parents. I wanted to make a million dollars. I started for the wrong reason. That’s why I don’t feel good about it.” A hint, at least, of that piece of this man’s complicated personality — that’s something that could’ve made a good Will Smith performance varied, challenging, more truthful. And, in the Williams family tradition, great.
MPAA rating: PG-13 (for some violence, strong language, a sexual reference and brief drug references) Running time: 2:24 How to watch: Now in theaters and on HBO Max