King Richard

While we have seen biopics covering the lives of famed musicians, politicians, athletes, and so on, relatively rarely do we see the ambition and hard work of those around the stars. King Richard, promisingly, seeks to challenge the trend, focusing on the life of famed tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams’ father—Richard.

The opening moments of the trailer are led by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles’ “The Tracks of My Tears”, a 1965 R&B hit. However, this turns out to be more in the way of incidental music, before the main drama is served up; at issue, of course, is the broader institutional belief and support in his girls’ potential that Richard (Will Smith) is fighting for. Note how at 0:22 we see him wave his hand forward, in synch with the beat.

The light violins and drum track that runs from 0:22 to 0:35 (bookended by some trailer-standard single, reverberant piano notes) turns out to be the introduction to Beyoncé’s “Be Alive”, a new song. Her vocals propel the trailer, at times drawing and even demanding attention. (It’s notable that nearly every comment on the YouTube video focuses on her performance.) This kind of synergy between film trailer and music stars, going so far as to debut new music this way, is still a fairly recent trend, and one to watch out for. In a world whose attention is split, the trailer remains a force as a relatively cogent way to premiere a piece of media, fostering hopes it will turn up in the movie as well.

Back to the trailer, at 0:44 we see Richard make the hand motion again; we now understand it’s meant to be a tennis move, and by extension that percussion sound at 0:22 might be retroactively understood as representing the sound of a racket hitting the ball. At 1:02 that inference is made real as Venus and Serena hit the ball in synch to the music.

Following an action and dialogue montage, at 1:40 the trailer ratchets down to a plaintive moment a Richard asks Venus to express for herself exactly what she wants; the soundtrack is reduced to a hymn-like piano and sombre vocals by Beyoncé. This is still “Be Alive”—albeit clearly in some kind of bridge section (assuming the song takes a typical popular song structure).

At 2:28, a final sequence is propelled by a penultimate chord in the strings that hangs stubbornly; it’s a subtonic chord, one below the home note—close, not quite resolved. It coalesces with the energetic scenes it accompanies to send a message that contains a mix of power, determination, and positivity.

Serena and Venus have dominated tennis so long as to be synonymous with the sport. However, many people may not know that at the time of Venus Williams’ first Wimbledon win in 2000: she was the first female Black Wimbledon champion since 1958, when Althea Gibson won. It looks like King Richard seeks to understand and remember such a world—before Venus and Serena took it by storm, remembering what it took to get where they are, and celebrating that journey.

King Richard arrives in theatres and on HBO Max on November 19th.

— Curtis Perry