“King Richard” (2021)
Will Smith before he gave Chris Rock a forehand smash
Will Smith before he gave Chris Rock a forehand smash
Long before Will Smith took leave of his senses on live television to an audience varying from the hundreds of millions into the billions, and delivered the “slap heard around the world” to the ridiculously innocent Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars ceremony, he’d headlined the creation of a very fine film indeed. Overshadowing that creation, and then live celebration to possibly over a billion people around the world, was his unhinged slap and physical assault of Chris Rock, a psychotic meltdown, an overreaction to an in-joke, an overreaction to the public slighting of his wife, yet more Hollywood fuckwittery or just a quasi cult meltdown as he sought to assert his authority, his maleness, a valiant defence of his wife (who wasn’t slighted, it was in joke on her upcoming film that wasn’t for public knowledge just yet), but regardless, it was a five decades or more low point for a celebratory ceremony full of cringeworthy low points but none had gone so far as to physically assault the Master of Ceremony. Was it staged? Was it part of a male ritual? Was it manipulation from the power behind the throne? Was it some kind of quasi religious, cult like assertion of masculinity and dominance? We’ll probably never know and most of us prefer the perceived gossip rather than the perception of truth, but whatever it was, it was ugly, unbecoming and a stain the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will carry for a long time to come.
So much for all that.
The irony of course is that King Richard and the man playing the titular role of “Richard Williams” (Will Smith) are both respectively very good, with the ultimate irony being that Smith’s character (Father of tennis superstars and arguable revolutionaries and sport transcending generational legends Serena and Venus Williams), is forever preaching for his child prodigies to be humble, calm, considered and somewhat God fearing human beings. These through lines of the film are enormous. The film itself focuses only on the childhood and early teen years of the sisters dual development and not the stratospheric world beating and sport dominating athletes they would become in their later teens, all through their twenties and into their thirties. Richard Williams is many things as I’ll note shortly, but another of his constant preaching's is for all of his five daughters, and not just the stand our potential superstars, to be children and to enjoy their childhood, to be respectful and tolerant of others, aware of their skin colour, the inherent disadvantages that this quirk of skeletal skin pigment brings with it, but the word reinforced time and time again is a simple one, “humble”.
Smith’s performance is all with the eyes (heart breaking desolation, determination, righteous desire, extreme pride) and it’s a physical one too with a rather tired and sluggish stoop and arch to a shuffled walk of a man with the metaphorical world on his shoulders whilst trying to showcase, gain sponsors for and the protection of his two girls who are “gonna shake up this world”. Smith’s performance is of a proud Father, educator, coach, mentor, motivator and especially so protector and “best friend”. The film roughly spans the mid 1980’s in an all black and particularly bleak Compton area of California rife with racial inequality, poverty and infighting born of sheer desperation. As well as training his two potential superstars he appears to work as a night-time security guard and as the 1980’s turn into the 1990’s the racial inequality is again thrown into sharp focus with the stock footage shown, and graphically, of the abhorrent beaten taken by Rodney King at the hands of the Los Angeles police in 1991 with Richard Williams not averse himself to raise the obvious issue at an opulent, money no object junior tennis tournament when he remarks that he and his family are the “only black people” present. After compiling a “78 page plan before they were even born”, there is a stubbornness and a determination to Richard Williams not to be a “dumb nigger”, racially abused as a child and even abused within his own neighbourhood for wanting his children to rise up and out of their life and into a life seemingly only reserved for people with white skin.
Smith’s portrayal is arguably only as good as the performances that surround him and central to this are the young adult performances of Demi Singleton and Saniyya Sidney as his tennis obsessed “Where are we practising today, Daddy?” daughters Serena and Venus, with the family Matriarch of “Oracene Brandy Price” brilliantly realised by Aunjanue Ellis in a deliberate portrayal of Richard’s wife and only person seemingly allowed to be on his methodical level and able to fully challenge him. Jon Bernthal excels again in a substantial role, this time as tennis coach “Rick Macci” and the interplay, often raising the temperature level as well as that of the tension, is brilliant between Bernthal and Smith.
Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green (Joe Bell, Monsters and Men) and written by Zach Baylin, the period music soundtrack is an excellent accompaniment to the film with several exceptional musical choices including an instrumental piece straight out of the Quentin Tarantino 1997 classic Jackie Brown and presumably for the nod toward the district of Compton that appears in both films as well as “Cruel Summer” by Bananarama and “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers.
I expected Richard Williams to be depicted similarly to that of Earl Woods, father of Eldrick Tont Woods, or simply Tiger Woods, winner of 15 Major golf titles and, like Serena and Venus, someone who transcended and indeed revolutionised their individualistic sport. I also expected to dislike this film intensely and not because of Will Smith’s horrible indiscretion on Oscars Night but because tennis simply isn’t my sport. I’m a sports fanatic and there’s only so much time in any given day and so tennis, alongside Formula One, Rugby and American Football were dropped from my sporting roster long ago.
Expectations often disappoint, but not so on this occasion and I liked this film a lot and hence heartily recommend it to you. In an article that didn’t start out on a theme of irony, I’ll ironically close it by stating that perhaps the most ironic thing to have arisen from the horrible attack conducted by Will Smith on that Oscars night that will live on in infamy arguably forever, is Smith’s correct apology afterward, to Chris Rock, the Oscars Academy and the wider viewing audience. I know zero about Richard Williams aside from the 7/8 years cinematically depicted in this film and through his bluster, dedication, pig headedness, his plans, control and mastering the destiny of his young and otherworldly daughters is I could never, ever imagine him apologising.
For anything.
Thanks for reading. My three most recently published, spoiler free reviews are attached below or please see my archives for more one-off film reviews as well as plethora of in depth articles on the cinematic careers of Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan or Tim Burton, to name just three:
“Snowpiercer” (2013)
Welcome, to the real worldmedium.com
“The Little Things” (2021)
Denzel Washington masterclass in a film that fades awaymedium.com
“Road to Perth” (2021)
5 reasons for liking this road trip across Australiamedium.com