“King Richard” opens with a curious image of Will Smith as Richard Williams, who, struggling to support his daughters’ tennis aspirations amidst economic instability, picks up old, unwanted tennis balls from a lavish sports club. On the way out, he pauses to pluck more balls from the courts’ neatly polished grounds and nearby trash cans. Armed with a “78-page plan for their whole career,” Williams is determined to help craft a better future for his daughters by molding Venus and Serena Williams into tennis champions. 

Smith gives us a powerful performance as the two tennis legends’ infamous tiger dad, portraying the constant turmoil he and his daughters face as black individuals in a predominantly wealthy, white sport. Located in a working-class neighborhood littered with drug abuse and gang violence, the obstacles they encounter as minorities and the unconventional pathway they must take to overcome these barriers reveals an uncomfortable reality: the movie forces its audience to realize the jarring dichotomy between the perfectly paved green courts of luxurious, affluent tennis clubs versus the girls’ bullet-scarred surfaces in Compton, California. 

“King Richard” is not your typical ‘rags to riches’ fairytale. While the film does end on a happy note for Venus and Serena, it uncovers a startling, but true, reality of navigating society as a historically discriminated and oppressed minority. In an expertly portrayed scene illustrating this contrast, the clip alternates between the girls reciting Venus’s New York Times headline and a CNN report on a graphic recording of police brutality against a black individual in Los Angeles. Smith’s pained, conflicted gaze demonstrates an emotional complexity within Richard Williams: he understands and is deeply troubled by the division between a normal reality for black people in America, and the triumphant picture he strives to paint for his daughters.