Yuna@yuna_y

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King Richard Will Smith 2021

Richard Williams kept a plan in his head while Compton laughed at him, and it ran 78 pages long. That is the thing King Richard gets right that most sports biopics fumble. The 2021 film is not really about tennis. It is a study of obsession and vision, of a parent who looked at systemic decisions being made about his kids and refused to let them stand. Will Smith understood the assignment better than he has in anything else. Playing Richard Williams was never about being likable. It was about being correct, and Smith played him that way. Two champions came out of that house. Venus & Serena are still central to the sport decades later, which is the part that should not work but does. The parenting on display is loud, intense, radical. Richard Williams wrote a manifesto for his daughters while the neighbors mocked him, and soft parenting could never. Hollywood has always had a soft spot for tragic Black stories. This one hit different because it refused to be soft at all. Everyone loves to call a father toxic until his kids become GOATs. Venus and Serena rewrote history. That is not a plot. That is King Richard.

1h

Yuna@yuna_y

Follow

King Richard Will Smith 2021

Richard Williams kept a plan in his head while Compton laughed at him, and it ran 78 pages long. That is the thing King Richard gets right that most sports biopics fumble. The 2021 film is not really about tennis. It is a study of obsession and vision, of a parent who looked at systemic decisions being made about his kids and refused to let them stand. Will Smith understood the assignment better than he has in anything else. Playing Richard Williams was never about being likable. It was about being correct, and Smith played him that way. Two champions came out of that house. Venus & Serena are still central to the sport decades later, which is the part that should not work but does. The parenting on display is loud, intense, radical. Richard Williams wrote a manifesto for his daughters while the neighbors mocked him, and soft parenting could never. Hollywood has always had a soft spot for tragic Black stories. This one hit different because it refused to be soft at all. Everyone loves to call a father toxic until his kids become GOATs. Venus and Serena rewrote history. That is not a plot. That is King Richard.

1h