Written by Gabriella Robinson, Image courtesy of Star Thrower Entertainment
In the rigorous world of competitive tennis, the smallest of mistakes can cause a player to throw a game. There is no room for hesitancy in a professional match, where the decision to lob or volley a ball must be made in a millisecond and can cost a player the game. In the past thirty years, this tenuous sport, with its rigid practices and high stakes, has been morphed into a game of opportunity by the rackets of Venus and Serena Williams. Together, the pair of sisters have thirty Grand Slam titles under their belts and are regarded as some of the greatest tennis champions of all time. Their individual journeys and rivalries are the stuff of legend, and yet, this two-and-a-half-hour biopic revolves the untold story of a different William’s legend: their father, Richard.
As he solicits country clubs with handmade brochures in search of a coach for his daughters, it is instantly apparent that Richard Williams is a different kind of tennis dad. Throughout the film, the Williams’ five sisters flock with him to the courts each day in sun-soaked, mid-90’s nostalgic bliss. The eccentric Richard (Will Smith) is dedicated to his coaching regime for Venus and Serena, whom he proclaims to be the next biggest tennis stars to anyone who listens. Their genuine love for the game seeps into every drill, rain or shine. Moving as a team through their hometown of Compton, the tight-knit family of seven support each other in everything they do. Richard follows the 78-page plan he drafted for his daughters prior to their birth with contagious confidence and propels his family out of Compton into the glittering, glaringly white country-club universe of competitive tennis.
As executive producers of the film, Venus and Serena re-enact their upbringing and encapsulate Richard as their vivacious cheerleader and sometimes bullheaded coach. Whether he’s facing social-workers or famous mentors, Richard is unflinchingly himself and ignores convention. He thanks the wealthy agents at the club for “taking off their hoods before they came in,” interrupts interviewers and is beaten-up for defending his underaged daughters from harassment. He does it all in six-inch inseam tennis shorts (which Smith never parts with for a single scene). Despite real-life criticisms of Richard domineering the girls’ careers, director Reinaldo Marcus Green digs past the infamous stubbornness to reveal Richard as his daughters saw him: a father who would do anything to give them a better life. To counteract the constant pressures of matches, he pulls them out of practice to visit Disneyworld, is adamant that they excel in their education and never lets them complete a match without the reminder that they should “have fun out there.”
“King Richard” is a sports movie that focuses more on the perseverance of family than personal victory. As a million different voices warned Richard that their window of opportunity was closing, he insisted that they would wait until the time was right and “just walk through the front door.” Little did the crowds of those early 1990’s matches know, the Williams wouldn’t “just walk through the front door”, but burst through, holding it open for entire generations of young girls and tennis players of color to follow.
In a post screening Q&A, actress Aunjanue Ellis (who plays Brandi Williams, Richard’s wife) reiterates the Williams’ persevering support of one another as the key to their history-making success. “Love was their weapon.” Ellis said in response to a quote from poet Nikki Rosa: “Black love is black wealth,” she fondly adds of the family. “And they were rich”.
