Game, set, and match: Smith serves up winning performance in Williams biopic
The last based-on-real-life tennis move I reviewed was Battle of the Sexes back in 2017, a jaunty yet powerful look at the infamous 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. Just as that movie was about so much more than solely tennis, so too is King Richard, a film that takes place nearly 20 years later, and, while ostensibly about the early lives of tennis champions Venus and Serena Williams, is actually about race, class, parenting, and marriage. But the picture features plenty of nail-biting tennis matches, too, for the true tennis aficionado.
The film’s subtitle is Venus, Serena, and a Plan for Greatness, which is telling, since the film’s main title bears the name of the sisters’ father, the Man with the Plan: Richard Williams. Ultimately, Richard, not his daughters, is the protagonist of this story of the sisters’ rise to greatness. As played by Will Smith in what is sure to be an Oscar-contending performance, Richard, a security guard in Compton originally from a poor family in Louisiana, displays the drive, determination and confidence of a used car salesman. The difference, though–and Richard’s advantage–is that his daughters actually are the real deal. Richard spends his work hours poring through tennis magazines, and, from the time his daughters were infants, had already drafted a plan for them to become world tennis champions. His motto, which he imparts on his large family, is: “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
The heart of the movie takes place in the early ‘90s, when Venus (Saniyya Sidney, Fences; Hidden Figures) and Serena (Demi Singleton) are 12 and 10, respectively. Richard tries to train them himself, but is often met with harassment and violence on the courts in his neighborhood. Convinced his daughters are better players than any of the privileged, white kids on the other side of the city, Richard knocks on doors until he finds a high-end coach to take them on. These scenes underscore the deep divide of the racially charged Los Angeles at the time, when the Rodney King beating had just happened and the city was on edge. “I appreciate everyone taking their hoods off,” Richard says to some white sports agents at an exclusive tennis club at one point, a joke emblematic of both Richard’s sharp and dry sense of humor and the disbelief and discomfort that often greet him.
That meeting sets the stage for one of the film’s primary conflicts. Richard pulls his daughters out of the juniors tennis circuit, the avenue long considered the best route for young players to turn pro. He doesn’t like the pressure and the racism he sees there, and he wants his daughters to have time for school, family, and to just be kids. His stubbornness causes him to butt heads with the top coach he secures for the girls, Rick Macci (Jon Bernthal, Ford v Ferrari), who coached Jennifer Capriati to early success. And later, in a pivotal scene, Richard has a heated argument with his wife, Oracene (Aunjunae Ellis), when she thinks Venus is ready for her first pro tournament, but Richard remains reluctant.
Director Reinaldo Marcus Green, who won a special jury prize for Monsters and Men at Sundance in 2018, and first feature screenwriter Zach Baylin have thus created a fascinating portrait of a complex man whose motivations aren’t always clear. Yes, he’s a passionate and loving father, but does he want success for his daughters for them – or for him? Is putting tennis at the center of his family’s universe what’s best for his marriage and his other children? Green and Baylin let us decide for ourselves, and Smith’s performance lets us see the conflicting sides of a man whose past has informed his present and future, for better or worse. Underestimated by many in the posh world of professional tennis, Richard holds his own and defies and surprises both his detractors and supporters along the way. Smith excels at creating a multi-faceted character whose flaws and strengths seem to be perpetually battling for dominance.
While Smith is a standout, Ellis matches him toe to toe, and their argument scene about Venus’s future is the best in the movie, raw in its intensity and authentic in its feel. Sidney, Singleton, and Bernthal all turn in excellent work as well, with young Sidney and Singleton capturing the struggle the sisters face between wanting to please their father, be their best, and be independent of their father’s big Plan.
But aside from the family’s emotional arc, the film features plenty of great tennis action, too. The Bay Area gets some love, as well, since the film’s climactic show-stopper moment is Venus’s first pro match at the Bank of the West tournament in Oakland in 1994, in which the then unknown young teen was pitted against reigning world champion Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, in a match that Baylin’s script has a sportscaster dub “bigger than Ali vs. Frazier” (not sure if that line was actually uttered in real life, but it sure helps heighten the film’s big dramatic moment).
The film ends with clips of the real Richard Williams and his daughters, and if you don’t know much about their story before heading into this picture, you’ll be impressed with how well the film hits the mark in its portrayal of the main players. Venus and Serena faced seemingly insurmountable challenges to become two of the world’s greatest athletes. To see how their success was made possible thanks in a large part to the unwavering resolve of their father–a man who wouldn’t take no for an answer–is the type of against all odds story that the movies are made for.
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King Richard opens today at Bay Area theaters, and also premieres on HBO Max.
