'The Williams method': Will Smith fights for the Oscar as the father of the tennis sisters

Since his emergence in the nineties with

Will Smith has managed to be, thanks to a charisma from another era, one of those Hollywood stars that everyone would want at their table. He was a high-spirited rapper with a faker complex due to his wealthy origins and, later, an actor allergic to method who, however, has proven to be a comedian capable of reaching deep layers of emotion without hardly ruffling his hair. If in

by Michael Mann, he dared (and convinced) with one of the great African-American icons, the boxer Muhammad Ali, in

points to the podium again with the tennis players Venus and Serena Williams, two athletes who broke with the white hegemony of tennis;

in addition to bursting the traditional neat aesthetics of sport with their fuchsia or

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The long (and sometimes complicated) shadow of fathers in the world of tennis

The Williams method

is an authorized

(the Williams sisters appear in the production and the final climax of official photos only confirms the family approval) on the story of the controversial Richard Williams, father of the tennis players, who literally came to ensure that the conceived with one plan in mind: to make them the first black world champion tennis players. His unorthodox plan included moving, when his daughters were still very young, from a quiet neighborhood to a much more problematic and dangerous one so that the girls would learn to defend themselves from within, with the mental weapons of the fierce ghetto.

Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, a student of Spike Lee who seems embarked on the gold mine of

—now he is preparing that of Bob Marley—, the weight of

falls on the shoulders of Smith and his incarnation of a controversial character. The film focuses on the puberty years of Venus and her little sister Serena and their father's decision not to let them play in the junior circuits following that "Williams plan" that is constantly referred to in the film.

Smith is the absolute king of a conventional film but capable of showing the viewer the dream of two girls with strong personalities (and very believable in the skin of Saniyya Sidney and Demi Singleton) and the discipline of an enlightened father that Smith composes with weapons of the best actor: the gestures always to the limit of a man without apparent lights and something coarse, but of an obstinacy and perseverance capable of bearing fruit.

Just to attend the duel between Arantxa Sánchez Vicario and Venus in the mid-1990s, who at the age of 14 made a jump without a net to the professional circuit, it is worth seeing the film.

It is one of the best sequences of the film and perfectly sums up Will Smith's infallible method to conquer, even with a character as ambiguous and unpleasant as this one, his loyal audience.

THE WILLIAMS METHOD 

Direction:

Reinaldo Marcus Green.

Cast:

Will Smith, Demi Singleton, Saniyya Sidney, Aunjanue Ellis, Jon Bernthal, Tony Goldwyn.

Genre:

drama.

United States, 2021. 

Duration:

138 minutes. 

Premiere: January 21.

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