Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
The story of how Richard Williams served as a coach to his daughters Venus and Serena, who will soon become two of the most legendary tennis players in history.
King Richard is elevated primarily by Will Smith's commanding, nuanced performance as Richard Williams, which earned him an Oscar and is genuinely exceptional in capturing the man's contradictions — visionary, stubborn, loving, and maddening. The supporting cast, including Aunjanue Ellis as Brandy Williams, matches him well. The plot follows a fairly conventional sports biopic structure — underdog family battles skeptics, achieves greatness — though the unusual framing of focusing on the father rather than the athletes themselves adds some freshness. Cinematography is competent and warm but unremarkable. Novelty is moderate: the Richard-centric perspective is a smart angle, but the film doesn't radically reinvent the genre. The ending, while emotionally satisfying around Venus's Wimbledon run, leaves Serena's story conspicuously unfinished, feeling slightly incomplete by design.