Had I known Richard Williams personally, I would have found him ridiculous. A lot of parents have big plans for their children. A lot of parents act on those plans. Some even have the means to manipulate all the variables. More often than not, you still get Prince Charles or Donald Trump anyway … and those are the “success” stories; you’ve heard of those guys.
Long before his girls reached puberty, Richard Williams (Will Smith), a lower-middle class black man living in Compton, believed he had sired two of the twenty-five best athletes to ever play women’s tennis. Yes, tennis, a sport we often associate with restricted clothes, restricted manners, and restricted clubs. Until the Williams sisters showed up, the history of black success stories in the sport of tennis could be counted on one hand. But Richard Williams insisted he had two of the greatest champions the sport had ever seen living under his roof.
And he wasn’t wrong.
“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail” isn’t just a mocked cliché from Mystery Men; this is the Richard Williams creed. Every time Richard trotted Venus Williams (Saniyya Sidney) or Serena Williams (Demi Singleton) to the public courts, their sisters (yes, sisters. Did you know Venus and Serena had siblings besides one another? King Richard chauffeured five girls wherever he went. Wiki says the others are half sisters, and –at that- they represent only 30% of the half-sibs to Venus and Serena)
Anyhoo, where was I? Oh yes, wherever the girls practiced, their sisters Tunde (Mikayla LaShae Bartholomew), Isha (Danielle Lawson), and Lyndrea (Layla Crawford) hung the creed for the girls to see. King Richard planned the lives of Venus and Serena before they were even born. He’s proud of his 78-page treatise on engendering success stories. All of this is a little hard to take on its face … add in the fact that Richard had at least seven (7!) other children, none of whom appear in this film, and one is inclined to ask: “Was that all part of the plan, too?”
For a biopic about Richard Williams, the film is almost equally about the rise of Venus from Compton to stardom. But one cannot describe with path without noting exactly how narrow it was. And the reason it was narrow? The Great Santini-ish nature of Richard Williams, who dominated everything about his daughters’ environment, often overruling or even ignoring his partner, Brandy (Aunjanue Ellis), in the process.
Here’s the big question: is King Richard a villain or a hero? Richard Williams has already been skewered by the press for controlling the lives of his daughters. No question King Richard will come off as a royal dick from 
time-to-time. You need look no further than the Britney Spears conservatorship to know what is going on there. But he was right. Doesn’t that make a difference? At a time when every American prodigy was playing Juniors, Richard pulled his kids from them citing potential “burnout.” They wanted to play; Juniors was the proven path to the show. Is that villainous? But he was right. Venus and Serena both played competitive professional tennis into their forties; that is unheard of. Even through injury, they never lost a desire to compete; do we attribute that to being withheld from the Juniors?
King Richard told me a great deal more about the lives of Venus Williams and Serena Williams than I ever knew before. Some of it is remarkable, some it unbelievable, most of it fits perfectly with what I already knew. I’ll say this much for the film – there’s reasonable tennis here. Hollywood has a way of sucking at tennis. The film Wimbledon had worse tennis than King Richard. And how do you find black actresses who know how to hit a tennis ball? I think that’s 100% the influence of Venus and Serena in our society. Now, that said, is King Richard an important film? Probably not. Is it a great film? Probably not. Is it an insightful film? Probably not. Are there great performances here? Probably not. Is it a good film? That I will cop to. Call it a tie-break victory.
There once was a man twice blessed
Who insisted his girls were the best
Damn me all along
That clown wasn’t wrong
And his model has outpaced the rest
Rated PG-13, 144 Minutes
Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green
Writer: Zach Baylin
Genre: Gee, you think you know a guy…
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Tennis junkies
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Arantxa Sánchez Vicario
