Will Smith’s Oscar-worthy performance as Richard Williams makes ‘King Richard’

Richard Williams, father of Venus and Serena, is convinced that his daughters will become the world’s best tennis players. He has personally made flyers in which he explains their exceptional qualities. Push one in the hand of every potential tennis coach in the Los Angeles area. Rejection after rejection, of course. From friendly (if only I got a dollar from every parent who thinks their kid is the newest star) to painfully stereotypical (have you tried basketball?).

Tennis used to be not a game that people like him played, the voice-over says. Born in the southern US state of Louisiana, Williams was “too busy running for the Klan.” If there is one sport in which segregation is still visible to an extreme degree in the early 1990s – and in which a confident, black tennis father is viewed with the utmost suspicion, it is tennis.

This is how the classically told and exquisitely acted American sports drama begins King Richard. Classic, because the viewer obviously knows how it will continue, and the makers clearly know that the viewer knows this. From that dilapidated tennis court in the Compton neighborhood in Los Angeles to the world’s best, this is a pleasantly smoothly told film – during the serve the camera follows the ball and we fly three years further in time – with beautifully recreated tennis scenes. The highlight is the breakthrough match of the then 14-year-old Venus against world ranking leader Arantxa Sánchez Vicario. And there are finely exuberant supporting roles, including Jon Bernthal as star coach Rick Macci.

The premise of King Richard is nevertheless refreshing, because the focus is not initially on the genesis of two of the greatest tennis stars of all time (Venus won seven Grand Slam titles, the one year younger Serena took 23, together they won fourteen in doubles) , but to their father, who played a compelling role in charting their career path. Despite – or because of, that remains skilfully in the middle in the scenario – his rigid personality and unorthodox vision of the sport and the ideal route to success.

Will Smith, usually not the most refined actor as a tasty energetic action-comedy cannon, went through an unprecedented transformation for his role. Larger than for other films in the more serious segment of his oeuvre, such as his portrayal of Muhammad Ali in Michael Mann’s Ali (2001). Classes better anyway than in sentimental drama like Seven Pounds (2008) or Collateral Beauty (2016).

His Oscar-worthy performance as Richard makes the film. Smith plays him as an introverted mumbler, so often reviled and humiliated in the past that it has affected his entire posture; crouched down a bit. He does everything he can to ensure that his children receive the respect he never had. He is traumatized and broken, but at the same time indestructible. Like a steamroller, he paves the way for the apples of his eye.