Venus and Serena
Williams are two of the world's best tennis players of all time, but they become supporting characters in this film about their father Richard.
It's easy to be skeptical of that priority, but it makes the suspense more unpredictable than in most other reels in the reality-based sports biography genre.
It's less about a star who will discover his talent, train hard and eventually win an important match, and more about the discipline of parenting.
Although of course there will be several very nicely choreographed tennis matches.
Admittedly, everything here is presented according to the recipe for the American dream of getting from the bottom to the top.
It becomes clichéd but not to the extent that it ridicules the movie experience.
It was like figuring it out already by glancing at the movie poster.
King Richard takes
place when Venus and Serena are in their early teens and the Williams family are poor and live in Compton, Los Angeles.
The six sisters stay out of trouble thanks to mom Brandy and dad Richard, played by Will Smith.
Behind the wheel of the family's worn-out public bus, Richard tells of how he was humiliated all his life and never received the respect he now struggles to give his daughters.
If it was not the police, it was KKK Richard who had to run away while growing up in Louisiana.
Will Smith is
convincing in the role of a man who continues to rise despite the world continuing to beat him.
In an early scene, he is beaten at the tennis court after some gang members threatened to rape his daughters.
The constant paranoia of trying to survive in a segregated ghetto is interspersed with Richard's persistent coaching and the search for a professional coach for his daughters.
Which does not prove to be easy for a black family who has dedicated half their lives to the often all-white sport.
After a while, Richard gets a pacifier and someone states that "I think you have the next Michael Jordan", to which he replies "No I have two".
Will Smith as
Richard's father is reminiscent of his role as a struggling single father in the Oscar stalwart The Pursuit of Happiness, who also exploited Smith's crying face in a skillful way.
Here, his body language is more cohesive, as Richard has very stubborn ideas that his daughters should not burn out prematurely, even though the whole world seems to want to see them in different tournaments.
With the results in hand, we know that Richard's strategy worked, which nicely rolls out a more nuanced sense moral (to be a sports film), about appreciating one's own true value despite the lack of material conditions.