This thread has taken a strange turn I was not expecting. I really enjoyed the movie. The odds were stacked to what? Maybe a 1,000,000 to 1 that a black family could produce not one but two phenoms in a predominately white, rich country club sport?
Oh, Venus Williams! They can't touch you!
One can appreciate the rise and success of the Williams family in tennis on one hand.
And also see the horrible selfish gaslighting that Serena Williams inflicted on young Naomi Osaka on a national stage. It had to be about Serena Williams. She consoled Osaka telling her it wasn't her fault while making all about Serena yet again. That was just a ####ty thing to do to another human being, fame or not.
Ty Cobb is widely accepted as an incredible baseball talent but also a lousy human being.
Serena Williams is not immune from the question on if she's generational level tennis talent but also a lousy human being herself. However in the first case, if you say it about Cobb, well that's just an opinion and no one will really fight you on it. If you say the second thing about Serena Williams, you are a racist and a bigot. Which is why no one really says it. Which functions as a way to enable an over the top combative narcissist.
Talent is not a blank check to inflict your poor character onto the rest of the world. It's disingenuous for Serena Williams to throw a tantrum at a line judge because she's getting her lunch handed to her by Osaka and pull the race card, but be too much of a gaslighting narcissist to see to do all that, she had to shove Osaka's face in the dirt, ignoring that the harm is inflicted on another woman who is half black herself, and drag her along for the ride.
It's an Oscar bait movie, which is fine. But Will Smith hasn't had a big hit in a long time and he saw the success Matthew McConaghey had with Dallas Buyers Club then True Detective to entirely reset his career.
Feel good underdog virtue signaling films take two different paths. Hidden Figures was handled pretty well. Kevin Costner wasn't reduced to a mustache twirling villain to cover for a lack of a real script. However a pure Oscar bait film like The Help was egregiously ham fisted. Bryce Dallas Howard might as well have been filmed burning a cross on a lawn. It comes down to the writing. Cheap writing can only produce caricatures. Excellent writing gives solid actors a chance to elevate the material. Taraji P. Henson lifted up Hidden Figures on her back.
Much of the problem is Will Smith is not a good actor. He's a "movie star" or a currently faded one looking for a comeback. You can shelve King Richard right there with formula schlock like Coach Carter, Dangerous Minds and The Blind Side.
A better example of a balanced sports film is Bend It Like Beckham. Which took the time and care to discuss the conflicts of sports amidst culture, race, tradition, expectations and adversity. Parminder Nagra was given an excellent script that didn't try to paint her as a victim without any personal agency. Schlock cheap feel good sports movies always try to corner their audiences with one dimensional heavies that try to chew scenery instead of taking a character beyond one dimension.
A film with Serena Williams in it can only be authentic if it's a cautionary tale.