Will Smith delivers a career-best performance in King Richard, with the A-lister completely disappearing into the role of Venus and Serena Williams’ father, and it’s not a shock to discover that he’s been positioned as the one to beat in the Best Actor race.
However, there’s been some backlash pointed in the direction of the uplifting and inspiring biopic, for how it glosses over the fact that Williams already had an ex-wife and five children by the time he met Venus and Serena’s mother, and now another wrinkle to the discourse has appeared online.
Some Twitter users aren’t happy that King Richard follows the success of the two future icons through the eyes of their often-controversial old man, which they feel diminishes the achievements of their success by focusing largely on Richard’s role in their training and development.
As you can see below, a can of social media worms has been opened by the hot take, with many pointing out that the movie wouldn’t have happened any other way.
Venus and Serena are executive producers of King Richard and had the power to veto any creative decisions they didn’t approve of, so they were quite clearly supportive of their dad being the driving force behind the story. Besides, it’s inevitable that we’ll be getting another biopic focusing almost exclusively on the trophy-laden siblings eventually.