King Richard (2021); Belfast (2021)
(Serena (Demi Singleton), Venus (Saniyya Sidney) and Richard Williams (Will Smith))
King Richard (2021)
King Richard tells the founding story of the tennis phenomenon the world now knows as Venus and Serena Williams (played by Saniyya Sidney and Demi Singleton, respectively). But the movie’s driving force is their exuberant father, Richard Williams (Will Smith), who through sacrifice and doggedness, his and theirs, pushed them to a place where their extraordinary talent could speak for itself.
This was no mean feat. What makes the movie enjoyable is knowing that two great Black athletes from modest means channeled their immense potential into greatness. Attention should be paid.
How did it happen? Success in tennis, the movie tells us, turns not just on skill but on how you carry yourself. It's the 1990s, and in their modest Compton, California home, five Williams daughters share a single bedroom. Richard and his devoted wife Oracene, known as Brandy (Aunjanue Ellis), instill discipline – homework is more important even than tennis – to keep the young girls busy and self-confident.
The children are also unfathomably sweet, demure, and puritanically sheltered for the 1990s. But with their giggles at their father's teasing, and their awed silence at his patient scolding, the girls clearly adore him. He assures them that achieving greatness is a matter of time. Talent will out. That’s turned out to be true, but from the beginning we get the sense that Richard needs to believe in that legend even before he knows how to make it come true.
Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green and shot by cinematographer Robert Elswit, the movie shows us scenes of gentle, more than slightly idealized, domesticity. It tracks Venus and Serena’s rise from working-class steadiness to the brink of dazzling professional success. Richard rules with an affectionate flair. He’s demanding, but mostly jokes and gently goads in order to keep his daughters focused.
It takes screenwriter Zach Baylin a lot of screen time before he blends some darker colors into this near fairytale. The first hour passes mostly pleasurably. Richard declares that no one will dictate career moves to his daughters. Except, of course, the egomaniacal Richard himself. He primes the girls, starting in their pre-teens, to play tennis not just earnestly, but honorably. He teaches self-respect along with the strategically wide leg-stance that he believes is the key to winning on court.
Richard coaches the girls by day and into the evenings, working as a security guard on the graveyard shift. Which means he gets little sleep since he sometimes marches Venus and Serena, with the other sisters in tow, off to practice after nightfall.
One night, low-riding neighborhood thugs make a crude pass at the family’s eldest daughter, Tunde (Mikayla Lashae Bartholomew), who’s 16. When Richard tells them to back off, they beat him to the ground, as his horrified daughters look on. It happens again later on. Apparently, Richard is willing to undergo humiliation before his children as long as they keep concentrating on excellence. Never mind what he endures. Tennis stardom awaits them.
But how exactly does Richard know that? Baylin’s script never pins down Richard's certainty, though it’s fun watching him steer Venus and Serena toward the victories we know they’ll savor. Even more compelling than their graceful moves on court is his daughters’ pledge not to let his dreams for their success fade.
But two obstacles stand in Richard’s way, and at first it seems there’s little he can do about either. One is that, gifted as his daughters are, the standard tennis pro trajectory dictates that a young player must first excel in junior, non-professional tennis tournaments. That’s the orthodox way to be spotted by top-flight coaches and powerful agents.
The second obstacle is that tennis is a white-dominated sport. After Venus and Serena have honed their skills on Compton’s tennis courts, Richard wants them to practice in a venue where they can be properly admired. He starts near the top. He takes them to practice at a white tennis club where regulars John McEnroe and Pete Sampras happen to be practicing that day.
He has to persuade the white club owner, Paul Cohen (Tony Goldwyn), to watch his daughters hit a few balls. Cohen reluctantly agrees, but after a few moments tossing them tennis balls and seeing them returned with speed and power, he recognizes both girls’ depth of talent. They now have a court outside Compton where they can train.
And be seen. Once white coaches get a glimpse of the girls’ extraordinary grace under pressure, word spreads. Professional tennis’ movers and shakers begin to circle these two rare talents, mindful of the potential gold mines they represent.
The most enthusiastic tennis guru is Rick Macci (Jon Bernthal), who promptly moves the family to Florida and into a grand house, and gets them the exposure that can land lucrative sponsorships.
Richard isn’t completely on board. He wants his daughters, all five, to excel academically, not just on a tennis court. And he continues to argue that the junior tennis circuit is a rung his girls can skip, insisting that when they enter the sport in earnest, they'll enter as pros.
In the role of Richard, Will Smith makes one man's commandeering of his children's lives both moving and funny. He urges humility when he's anything but humble. He trumpets their potential greatness at the game, and of course by now we know he was right. But should they go for the money they’re being offered – at one juncture it’s $3 million – to train under ideal circumstances and enter pro competition fully prepared to win?
Since they’ve never played professionally, Richard signals that it’s too early to make any such commitment. Venus herself, now aged 14, says no to that $3 million. She – of course she still actually means Richard – wants to call her own shots. Once she makes that decision, we watch her play a crucial game, and learn what the all-important public reaction will be to such a bold move from a still largely unknown, frightened, courageous teenager.
The script makes wry and delicious comedy of Richard's benign dictatorship. There's something almost 19th century about the way his adoring daughters look up to him, do his bidding – which indeed steels and toughens them – and wait on his word.
Yet we can’t help wondering why this man pours so much of his energy, so much of his self-esteem, into his daughters. What exactly is in it for him? Or, put another way, what’s he in it for? His zeal is too persistent, too unwavering for us not to wonder what he’s running from, or hiding.
(Brandy (left) (Aunjanue Ellis), Richard (center) and daughters in King Richard)
His wife Brandy, in a crucial, wonderfully acted scene, sets him – and us – straight. Where, Richard arrogantly proposes, would she be without him? Where, she counters, would he be without his daughters? And with her by his side raising them? Richard, it turns out, is a man on a mission not just to inspire and protect his daughters, but to give his own life a meaning that, without their accomplishments, has eluded him.
Jocular as he is, he's also abrupt, vain, arrogant . . . the list could go on. What he actually is, is frightened. There’s one lesson he hasn’t been able to teach his daughters, how to love and respect themselves without his goading, praise and protection. By movie’s end, we glimpse them beginning to learn self-respect from the inside.
Smith gives a fine comic and tragic performance. We see the patient, loving father. But we also can't help being appalled at his “dedication”, which can look awfully like emotional abuse. At one point a neighbor even calls the police on him, telling them the man is overworking his children, going so far as taking them out for nighttime tennis practice in driving rain. Richard forces the cops to back off, and the edge Smith gives to his voice keeps us in his corner.
But the interfering neighbor has a point. The script makes an overbearing egomaniac seem not just admirable, but inevitable. Would Venus and Serena be where they are today had he been less controlling? Smith’s performance makes us wonder. Exceptional sports figures – and perhaps all great achievers – come from backgrounds where they somehow acquired doggedness, the only strength that can’t be taught. That’s what Richard seems to be endowing his daughters with. But in this script, the cost in emotional honesty and vulnerability, and the short-changing of tenderness, is never tabulated. We needed to see that, too, along with the triumphs.
Ellis is marvelous as the watchful mother to five needy girls. Ultimately, she must stand up to Richard and make clear that he doesn't hold all the cards and never has. She's underplayed her potency in her children’s lives until, in a stunning burst of truth-telling built up over years, she refuses any longer to be taken for granted. And the thought of Richard standing alone is a prospect the braggart has obviously never prepared himself to face.
Both actors excel, and, along with the tennis pros and agents jockeying for control, they're the story's guiding figures.
Yet I was most moved by Singleton's overlooked Serena and, especially, by Sidney's shattering Venus. Sidney, for me, all but walks off with the picture. Her role isn't large enough for her to quite pull that off. But I felt her longing, her doubts, and her doubling down on her self-respect when she needs it most, in a way I did with no one else except Serena. As Venus’ twin desires to please her father as well as be her own person battle in her eyes, tears spill, her spine stiffens, all sometimes within seconds. I found this to be the movie’s most touching performance.
Mostly because it made me wonder how I would have reacted to the rigor and warmth of Richard's embrace, for this problematical man unquestionably loves his children. But surely his grip is too tight. Properly wielding a tennis racket is not the same as taking your destiny in your hands. Richard impels the one, while stalling the other.
Somebody, please, write a biopic of what Venus and Serena brought about on their own. There's a great mini-series in that saga. In the wake of this movie, we all need to witness Richard letting go.
(Jude Hill as Buddy)
Belfast (2021)
Kenneth Branagh, the writer/director, has said that he wrote about the Belfast he remembers from his growing up. Under the opening credits, though, he shows us today's Belfast, which is sleek, modern, apparently safe from turmoil. It's shot in vivid, bright, touristy colors, almost urging us in the audience to pay a visit.
Belfast eventually teems with explosions, political street violence, retaliatory threats of worse harm to come, and sectarian bitterness. Yet, strangely, there's a placidity and calm running through most of the movie that, the script suggests, is truer, more enduring, than any cataclysm.
The story begins in August of 1969, and black and white visuals take over, albeit in inviting, urban pastoral tones. In a Belfast street scene, we see children playing, feel the bustle of families and tradesmen, hear quips, greetings and banter delivered in a disarming Irish lilt. What might not be so easy to grasp is that in this visual change to sepia, Branagh isn't entirely aiming for nostalgia. He's not suggesting, with these vibrant, graded variations of gray, that all is well here.
On the contrary, right after this pleasing opening, before we quite realize it, we're focused on Buddy (charming newcomer Jude Hill), a sandy-haired 9-year-old with warm, inquisitive eyes. Suddenly he stands stock still as violent Protestant extremists attack the homes of Catholics on Buddy's own street.
The camera circles him twice, and as we take in the chaos, we see a loss of innocence slowly filling his eyes. Protestant thugs are methodically using violence to intimidate their Catholic neighbors. It's obvious that Buddy has never even imagined smashed windows, beatings, or cars set alight on the street he's known all his life.
Change has come not just to Belfast but to Buddy's family. His Ma (Caitriona Balfe) rushes into the melee and grabs her son, shielding them both from thrown rocks by holding up a trash can lid Buddy had moments before used as a "shield", with his wooden "sword", to "slay dragons". She hurries Buddy and his older brother Will (Lewis McAskie) into the house as the unrest rages outside their windows.
The boys’ Pa (Jamie Dornan), arrives soon afterward, back from England and his job as a construction worker. He works two weeks at a time, absent from his family for days, often including weekends.
These four are watched over by Pa's stalwart parents, Granny (Judi Dench) and Pop (Ciaran Hands). That familial nest becomes a refuge. The Protestant militants press Pa to join them in their war against the Catholics, demanding ominously that he give them “cash or commitment”. The unimaginable, leaving Belfast, slowly seeps into the family’s kitchen table talks.
In the hands of Branagh and his longtime cinematographer, Haris Zambarloukos, upheaval, oddly enough, proceeds evenly. Events are unsettling, but not entirely disruptive. For a while violence seems to subside.
There’s contentment, too. Branagh is determined to show us that in the midst of political strife, life goes on. Buddy, like his creator, loves movies. We sense a strong undercurrent of Branagh's own life story as the family watches movies of "heroic" American westerns, or goes to the cinema to fall under the spell of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Enchantment had to live here, too, Branagh seems to be saying. It helped common people to endure.
(Ma (Caitriona Balfe), Pa (Jamie Dornan), Granny (Judi Dench), Buddy (Jude Hill) and Will (Lewis McAskie) at the movies)
The performances are all exacting and fleshed out. The Irish accents may occasionally be hard to decipher, but the lines are delivered robustly, and faces tell much of the story. You sense that lives are being altered. (A bouncing Van Morrison score pumps uplift in the background.)
None of this is difficult to believe, yet somehow, it's not entirely easy to swallow. True, in Belfast, religious fervor and smoldering resentments have long, bitter histories. And Pa wants to take the family out of this turmoil, eagerly showing his wife pamphlets of Australia and Canada, where he believes they could make a new start.
"To go or to stay" had to be a difficult decision during "The Troubles". Belfast is this family's mainstay, and it must have been sorrowful to think about leaving, even when that seemed the best way to keep the family safe.
This quandary apparently calls on a good deal of Branagh's personal history. When he was around Buddy's age his family indeed left Belfast for England. Yet, shocking as the violence is here, the Catholic/Protestant divide is never fully explored. We know "The Troubles" went on until 1998, and in small measure have even recently resumed. To try, at least, to love thy neighbor as thyself is one of the movie’s unspoken refrains, but we know that principle hasn't prevailed.
The movie finally isn’t about what Branagh has learned from The Troubles but what he's salvaged – wrenched – from those conflicts. He, as we well know, certainly turned out all right. And there's nothing wrong with that as a guiding principle for a script.
But bloody, hate-fueled violence as backdrop to the story of Buddy and his family feels a little off-kilter. It's not tone deaf, because the violence we see is harrowing. But what's never quite dramatized is how these people were wounded, inside, by the sight of their neighbors at each other's throats. With all they saw and underwent, what scars are going to be left? Branagh is content to let us imagine that for ourselves, and I don’t dispute his choice. But there’s an ache missing from the story as told here.
As far as I know Branagh has said nothing about a sequel. Yet the family's future seems ripe for exploration. And the twists and agonies Belfast has undergone since 1969 are always there to return to. Branagh has gone this far. I can't believe that he couldn't also go deeper.