King Richard
Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green ★★★★
The father behind two legends of tennis
“King Richard is a good old-fashioned Horatio Alger story for our time,” said Peter Debruge in Variety.A “grizzled” Will Smith stars as Richard Williams, a force of nature who envisioned tennis greatness for his daughters Venus and Serena before they were even born. We know going in that the Compton, Calif.–raised Williams girls fulfilled that dream. “The attraction here is discovering where the family came from, what they overcame, and how Richard’s master plan played out.” Intense hard work seems to have been the secret ingredient. “There will, no doubt, be questions about how accurate this portrayal of Richard is,” said Richard Lawson in Vanity Fair. Though the screenplay acknowledges that his relentless pushing exacted a psychological cost from the sisters, “for
the most part he’s framed as a difficult hero, a demanding father-coach-manager who nonetheless had a clear, correct, almost prophetic vision for what was best for two of his children.” Smith’s performance reminds us of the singular charge he brings to the screen, and Aunjanue Ellis has a memorable scene as the girls’ mother, but “the heart of the film” belongs to teenagers Saniyya Sidney as Venus and Demi Singleton as Serena, two natural young actors. Once the film’s focus turns to Venus, the older of the pair, said Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle, “whatever is going on with Richard becomes secondary.” In her scenes on court, “Sidney is able to convey the double quality of a killer in embryo and a vulnerable kid.” You won’t soon forget her. (In theaters only)