Tiger-dad behind Williams sisters’ tennis success

King Richard is about a tenacious African-American named Richard Williams, played by Will Smith, whose daughters Venus and Serena will grow up to enter the sporting world of fame.

Richard, played by Will Smith, is not a particularly likeable character. He’s overbearing and a bully, even though his heart is in the right place.

King Richard (M)
In cinemas
★★★½

King Richard is not a film about a historical monarch but about a tenacious African-American named Richard Williams who, played with his customary charisma by Will Smith, is nothing if not ambitious. Born and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana, Richard, according to his own account spent his early life running from the Ku Klux Klan. By the time this biographical movie begins he is married to the formidably impressive Brandi (Aunjanue Ellis) and they are living in the Los Angeles suburb of Compton with their five daughters. Venus and Serena Williams will grow up to enter the sporting world of fame as two of the world’s greatest tennis players.

Richard, who works as a security guard, likes to plan; in fact he demands that every member of his family has long-term ambitions. “If you fail to plan you plan to fail” is his mantra. He can also be aggressive and pushy, like many control freaks. But he gets results.

Meanwhile he is fiercely protective of his daughters, which sometimes puts him into conflict with the local hoods. Venus (Saniyya Sidney) and Serena (Demi Singleton) are still very young when their father decides that they will become world tennis champions. To this end he starts training them himself on the local tennis court and he also begins a relentless campaign to persuade professional tennis coaches that these girls from the ghetto are worth working with.

This proves extremely difficult. One sceptical coach remarks that Richard’s evaluation of his daughters’ prowess is akin to believing that the next two Mozarts are living in his house. But eventually Richard gains the support of coaches Paul Cohen (Tony Goldwyn) and Rick Macci (Jon Bernthal), though his constant interference proves exasperating for both men.

Scripted by Zach Baylin and directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, this curiously titled film (“king” is hardly the first word you think of to describe Richard, and I can’t remember him being referred to in this way in the movie) is, at 2½ hours, on the long side, yet the writer and director choose to conclude the story at a relatively early phase of the sisters’ careers.

Richard is not a particularly likeable character. He’s overbearing and a bully, even though his heart is in the right place. Brandi is a more interesting character, thanks to a superb performance from Ellis, and their scenes together are the best in the movie, although the tennis sequences are very well shot and edited.

The success of this film in the US is no doubt indicative of the inspirational story it tells; given their modest background the Williams sisters are a credit to their parents and to their community, and that’s what this feel-good movie celebrates.

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Limbo (M)
In cinemas
★★★★

Scottish writer-director Ben Sharrock’s Limbo is a very impressive film about immigration.

The location is the island of North Uist, in the Outer Hebrides, and this strikingly beautiful yet somewhat forbidding setting is the backdrop for the story of a group of refugees from a variety of countries who have been exiled to this remote corner of the British Isles while they wait to hear if they will be granted permission to stay in the UK or will be forced back to the countries from which they fled.

The men – they are all men – share very basic accommodation in what looks like a temporary building. Behind them are hills bereft of trees and in front of them a rocky coastline bordered by a road that is seldom used, except by the postman who delivers mail from time to time, while playing classical music on his car radio.

The film concentrates mainly on Omar (Amir El-Masry) a young Syrian. His brother is still in Syria, fighting against the regime; his parents have escaped their homeland and are living in Istanbul. He calls them regularly from a nearby phone booth.

Everywhere he goes, Omar carries with him in a case an oud, a traditional musical instrument given to him by his grandfather.

Also living in limbo are Farhad (Vikash Bhai), an Afghani, and a pair of brothers from Nigeria, Wasef (Ola Orebiyi) and Abedi (Kwabena Ansah).

To keep these bored and lonely men amused and occupied, the locals have arranged for classes conducted by Danish transplant Helga (Sidse Babett Knudsen) and the placid Boris (Kenneth Collard); among the subjects taught are the correct etiquette for a dance hall and how to apply for work as a cleaner.

For the most part, the locals are curious about these outsiders in their midst and not very PC in relating to them. Teenagers they come across seem to know little of the outside world; an elderly lady who travels around in a motorised wheelchair stares curiously at the outsiders but never speaks to them, while the local shopkeeper, a Sikh, gives Omar a lesson in racism.

Beautifully photographed by Nick Cooke, the film starts off as an amusing, observational, detached, almost anthropological study, but it becomes darker as it proceeds.

It’s unsentimental though at times very touching, and it’s beautifully acted by El-Masry and the other members of the cast.

Amir El-Masry in Limbo

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Venus & Adonis (tbc)
In cinemas
★★★½

Venus & Adonis, described as “a film about a play about a poem”, is an ambitious piece of filmed theatre. Set in 1592, when England’s artists, along with the rest of the population, were threatened by the plague, the film was made by members of the Sport for Jove theatre company and filmed over a period of eight days – in the midst of the contemporary plague – in the basement carpark of the theatre company’s Sydney offices.

Shakespeare (Anthony Gooley), who is suffering from syphilis, is rehearsing a play based on a poem by one of his rivals, Aemilia Lanyer (Adele Querol), who would become the first female poet to have her work published in the English language (Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, 1609). Aemelia is playing the leading role, and Queen Elizabeth herself – a very impressive Belinda Giblin – looks in on the rehearsals.

Director Damien Ryan, who appears in an early scene as Shakespeare’s doctor, and his co-director Jerome Meyer, who also has a role, that of Nat/Adonis, explore the drama’s themes of love and intimacy with candour and intelligence. However, no doubt due to the no-budget circumstances in which the film was made, the camerawork by Andre Vasquez is at times annoyingly wobbly. If you can put that aside, there’s much to admire in a film in which Giblin delivers lines like “Love is the screaming of the hounds” with such relish. I was reminded at times of the work of British director Peter Greenaway, who takes a similarly modernist approach to classical material.

Dedicated to storytellers and artists everywhere (and opening with a telling quote by Peter Handke: “If a nation loses its storytellers it loses its childhood”), this unusual but striking film is being given very limited one-off screenings in a variety of locations. It’s worth seeking out.

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I’m Wanita (MA15+)
In cinemas
★★★★

A portrait of Wanita Bahtiyar, an eccentric retro honky tonk singer who lives in Tamworth, NSW, I’m Wanita won the Best Documentary feature prize at the 2021 Sydney Film Festival. In the opening voiceover the forthright entertainer declares that she’s a booze drinker, a smoker, loves God and was a sex worker for many years. She is married to Mammer, aka Baba, a Turk who speaks little English. A devotee of country and western music, and a devoted fan of Loretta Lynn, Wanita, who has a beautiful singing voice, travels to Nashville with her manager, Gleny, and the charmingly raffish Archer, where, in a wonderful sequence, she records a music album. Australia’s self-described “Queen of Honky Tonk” is a larger-than-life character with a heart of gold and a no-holds-barred attitude to life, and Matthew Walker’s film serves her well.