On The Line: The Richard Williams Story is a 2022 American documentary film, written and directed by Stuart McClave. It profiles the famous tennis patriarch Richard Williams, the father and former coach of Venus Williams and Serena Williams.

Cast
 Richard Williams 
 Billie Jean King
 Pam Shriver
 Brad Gilbert
 Katrina Adams
 Rick Macci
 Serena Williams
 Venus Williams
 Oracene Price
 Dr. Dale Caldwell
 Dr. Kenna Franklin 
 Hershey Jones Jr. 
 Patricia Moore
 Kelvin Brown

Synopsis
The film opens with rare family footage in which Richard Williams asks his young daughters Venus and Serena Williams, years before they would become successful tennis players, if they feel a part of the ghetto, and what they like about it.

It then chronicles their rise from mastering tennis on the public courts of Compton, California around gang members to the family gate-crashing the ethnically homogeneous sport of tennis and rising through the rankings.

The film delves into two pivotal moments in tennis history: Venus Williams's professional tour debut at the 1994 Bank of the West Classic and the contentious 2001 Indian Wells Masters tournament.  The latter event ignited controversy when Venus Williams withdrew from a semifinal match against her sister Serena, citing right knee tendinitis. This led to Richard Williams being subjected to racial epithets and accusations of match-fixing. During the championship match against Belgian competitor Kim Clijsters, Serena Williams was met with a barrage of boos from the American crowd.

The film also captures contemporary moments with Richard Williams as he returns to his hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana. There, he reflects on his formative years, marked by the stark racial segregation of the Jim Crow South and an impoverished upbringing being raised by a single mother of five children who worked in the cotton fields. He also reunites with tennis coach Rick Macci after nearly 30 years, following Richard firing Rick as Venus's professional tennis coach in 1994.

Production

Director Stuart McClave, who grew up in a biracial family in Southern California, read an article about Richard Williams in 2019 that detailed his upbringing in Shreveport, Louisiana. Afterward, McClave arranged to meet Williams at his home in West Palm Beach, Florida, where they discussed the history of the sport and how the game changed after the Williams family rose to prominence. During these conversations, Richard Williams asked McClave to help him tell his story in his own words.

Production began in late summer 2021 and concluded in early 2022.

McClave has described the Williams family as "one of the most inspirational American families of all time."

Release
The film had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 12, 2022, and premiered internationally at the Sheffield DocFest on June 17, 2023. In May 2023, it was announced that Fremantle had acquired the global distribution rights.

The film is scheduled to be released on Sky UK in the UK and Italy, Network 10 in Australia, M-Net in South Africa, and Canal + in France.

Reception
Phil Harrison from The Guardian wrote that "It should just be the story of two gifted tennis players and their ambitious father. But, of course, it's much more than that. The story of the Williams family is, in many ways, a history of American racism. As this fascinating film shows, the family swapped the cotton fields of Louisiana for the urban blight of LA's Compton. Richard was incredibly demanding of Venus and Serena - but no wonder, when it became clear that they had the talent to achieve entirely different lives to their forebears."

Golden Globe Awards called it "a sweeping cultural reassessment" that explores "not merely athletic accomplishment, but chiefly the contours of the modern African American experience" and praised the filmmakers for "breathing life into its subject in a way that not even King Richard was able to accomplish."

Brent Simon called it an "engaging work" that "achieves something important and quite special by showing how Richard Williams's perceived unreasonableness or high degrees of reactivity were by design, a shield for his daughters, as well as also rooted in lived experience - an experience which many at the time chose not to try to understand."
 
Variety wrote that the film "examines the Black experience in America, and reflects the resilience and determination required by the family to prove their skeptics wrong."

Lisa Kennedy, in her review, commended the film for doing "a good job interrogating the media and commentators" and "answering the question the white tennis world was collectively asking, "Who is this guy?" but highlighted that the filmmakers and Richard Williams did not give enough credit to the contributions of Arthur Ashe and Althea Gibson.

The theatrical poster, designed by Akiko Stehrenberger, was featured by Creative Review and Mubi (streaming service) in their top movie posters of the year list.

References

External links
 

2022 films
American documentary films
American independent films