Richard Williams (Will Smith) has a plan for his daughters. In fact for Venus (Saniyya Sidney) and Serena (Demi Singleton) his plan is for them to become the greatest tennis players in the world. This film follows them from a young age to Venus first professional tournament at the age of fourteen. 

King Richard is a fairly straightforward sports biopic with only the slight exception that it’s main focus is not the sporting star, but their driven and eccentric father. Williams is a fairly interesting character to focus on of course, having written a plan for his children’s success before they were born and having a single minded focus on its fruition. We see him take beatings from gang bangers who threaten his children, coach them in the rain, fart at executives offering sponsorship and use the film Cinderella as a teaching aid. But most of all we see a focus on family and trying to create a protective environment for his children to grow up in. Even if sometimes that focus can be misplaced. 

There are plenty of montages, a real sense of the adversity they faced and some light hearted humour. The whole thing is very entertaining. But equally I am not sure it will live long in my memory either. 

It is worth dwelling a little on Smith’s performance. It feels like it is up there as one of his best acting performances. It is not since 2006 in the Pursuit of Happyness that we have really seen him put aside his larger than life persona and present a real character and it is nice to see. 

Stick around during the credits to see how some of the real life footage of Williams matches up.