Obligated to distill the notable events of their respective subjects’ lives, biopics are often arduous, struggling to weave in deeper thematic insights in the sheer expanse of almost historical mythology. I often find myself gravitating toward the subversive construction of something like Marielle Heller’s exquisite A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, evoking the essence of Fred Rogers by examining his momentous impact on one individual, a microcosm lensed through sophisticated tonal and stylistic flourishes.
Though it is far more conventional in its structure, King Richard, which chronicles Richard Williams’s plight to leverage his daughters Venus’s and Serena’s immense talent into the renowned tennis superstars they are now through sheer diligence and tenacity, pursues a similar yet inverted trajectory, recontextualizing broader sports iconography with utmost intimacy and vitality. A rousing populist piece underpinned by incredible emotional nuance, the film moves with both the grace and precision of the sisters’ signature athletic strokes.
Venus and Serena Williams (the teenage versions of which are deftly portrayed by Saniyya Sidney and Demi Singleton, respectively) are two grand fixtures in their arena’s pantheon, and this film shrewdly demystifies their towering reputation by underscoring the individual who shaped their enduring conviction and prowess.
It’s a slick film brimming with invigorating set pieces, uproarious training sessions and a scintillating aesthetic, yet it never remises to acknowledge the harrowing circumstances of the tight-knit Williams clan, deriving robust, timely insights from potent sociopolitical subtext. Director Reinaldo Marcus Green was ostensibly hired to exalt traditional Oscar bait, and amidst all his kinetic theatrics, he ensures to finely calibrate the storytelling into something unimpeachably compelling.
“This world ain’t never had no respect for Richard Williams, but they gonna respect y’all,” the titular figure (Will Smith) asserts to his daughters in a galvanizing and obviously telegraphed exchange, its gall justified and reinforced by such sincere filmmaking. Sewn with rugged compassion, the film rejuvenates tired biopic tropes, evading the mawkish with great aplomb. For a mainstream studio picture that overtly postulates the fruitful future of Venus and Serena several times, it’s laced and framed with a keen dramatic reverence, rendering palpable stakes that feel nothing but immediate, even as the more languid and slightly repetitive latter half poses some structural inconsistencies with the more propulsive former.
Richard Williams is certainly as fallible as he is tender, a domineering individual who steamrolls whomever necessary to crystallizing his daughters’ success, but his methods are spurred by sobering truths. The film never indulges in the reductive optics of the American dream, a deceptive construct that conceals systemic shortcomings, but sensitively portrays Richard’s toil as a resounding act of restoring his and his family’s dignity out of marginalization, transcending the oppression of 90s Compton to assuredly navigate a white-dominated space. One of the film’s most riveting scenes juxtaposes a broader accent in history, the war on drugs, which infamously peddled contempt for those in the minority, against something more achingly interpersonal as Richard nobly rejects the myopic advances of two agents who sought to commodify the race of his daughters.
Perhaps the most superb element of King Richard, however, is that its earnestness never devolves into cloying as the esteemed cast anchors the film in intrinsic humanity, headlined by Smith in one of 2021’s most pristine onscreen turns. A bona fide movie star evocation, he effortlessly straddles levity and pathos, exuding not only warmth but also rich emotional texture. What’s particularly laudable about it is how he imbues the nominal figure with a vivid complexity that doesn’t absolve him from his issues or oversaturate his triumphs, multifaceted in both its interiority and exteriority that shrewdly avoid caricature.
Aunjanue Ellis also enthralls as Richard’s committed yet fiercely self-possessed wife, especially in one stirring scene as she confronts her overbearing husband. Both performances crackle with empathy, devastation and, ultimately, resilience, and performing in tandem with this intricate ratio of radiance and sorrow, John Bernthal, as the girls’ endearing coach, accentuates the comic undertones of the film with staggering specificity of enunciation and dialect, exchanging his standard stoic demeanor for a bushy mustache and chipper verve.
For a film that often emulates the airiness of a country club breeze, King Richard grippingly undercuts this milieu with the profuse impact of a tennis ball, gliding with a poise yet striking in moments of pure catharsis. Poignant and vibrant, the film does not pose integrity as a tonic to American bigotry, an antiquated notion that trivializes a central intersectionality, but extols the preservation of it under such tumultuous context. Richard Williams was a lot of things – a phoenix rising from ashes, a loving father, a persevering spouse, the explosive and the fuse – but what remains so monumental is that he conquered such a fraught landscape on his and his loved ones’ own terms. Strategically lofting a yellow fuzzy ball past a mesh barrier has never been this rapturous and resonant.
Grade: A-
King Richard is now available in theaters and on HBO Max through December 19.
Photo Credit / Warner Brothers
