Movie review: King Richard is a classic rags-to-riches story

King Richard

★★★★☆

King Richard (12A) stars Will Smith as Richard Williams, the single-minded father of tennis greats Serena (Demi Singleton) and Venus Williams (Saniyya Sidney). 

A self-taught tennis coach who never played the sport himself (‘I was too busy running from the Man,’ he says), Richard devised the plan for his daughters' world domination even before they were born. 

Written by Zach Baylin and directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, King Richard is a classic rags-to-riches story — the girls are ‘ghetto Cinderellas’, according to their father — and plays out as a hugely inspiring tale as Serena and Venus go from practicing on ratty public courts to playing at Country Clubs before taking the tennis world by storm. 

The focus, however, is on Richard himself, who is played as a self-deprecating megalomaniac by Will Smith: his gee-shucks schtick can be a little irritating at first, until we realise that presenting himself as a folksy figure of fun is simply one more weapon in Richard Williams’ armoury. 

Indeed, the film grows increasingly interesting the more complex Richard Williams is allowed to be, and one of the most intriguing aspects of his relentless concentration on his daughters’ success is his insistence that their excellence is a by-product of their having fun. 

While Smith dominates proceedings, as we might expect, it’s in the supporting roles that we find most of the story’s grit: Aunjanue Ellis is a superbly chameleonic as Richard’s long-suffering wife Brandy, while Demi Singleton simmers magnificently as Serena, the younger sibling who grows up in her sister’s shadow. 

(cinema release)