Review: Will Smith rules in 'King Richard,' a Venus-and-Serena drama with a sharp spin
"Keep your stance open." These words, or some variation on them, form a steady refrain in "King Richard," Reinaldo Marcus Green's shrewd, slick and enormously satisfying drama about the forging of a pair of tennis superstars. To anyone who will listen (and some who won't), Richard Williams demands that his young daughters Venus and Serena use an open-stance technique, not the closed stance favored by most others. It's a nifty running gag, rooted in the truth: Richard and his then-wife, Oracene, really did teach their daughters this method, which would become more widely adopted in the wake of their fame and influence. And because sports dramas and biopics are all about tidy metaphors, it's also a lesson: Stay loose. Stay flexible. Keep an open mind.
This is admittedly rich advice coming from Richard, who is easily the most stubborn, closed-minded person in
