I, Tonya Reviews

Since I kept hearing some pretty good things about this flick, I was really eager to check it out. Well, as expected, I turned out to be one of the weirdest sport biopics I have ever seen. However, even though I was fully aware of this story back in the 90’s, I was surprised that the makers actually took Tonya Harding’s side. Indeed, the theory developed here was that she wasn’t involved at all with the assault against Nancy Kerrigan which makes it retrospectively rather cruel that she was completely banned afterwards from ice skating.  Eventually, Harding was a pretty good skater, maybe not the best ever, but, above all, she had the bad luck that she had been surrounded her whole life with some either viciously mean and/or incredibly stupid people. And, yet, beyond this messed up drama, it was also quite funny and this mix of drama and dark humour reminded me of ‘Fargo’ except that it was, in this case, based on a real story which made the whole thing even more surreal. Concerning Margot Robbie, to be honest, even though she was barely recognizable, she didn’t look anything like Tonya Harding in my opinion. However, she was still rightfully praised as she completely disappeared in her character and she gave here her best performance so far. Anyway, to conclude, did this story deserve such coverage at the time and, 25 years later, a feature film like this one? Probably not, but it was still a pretty good movie though and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you want to see Margot Robbie delivering her breakthrough performance. 

There’s an uneasy tension laced throughout I, Tonya, as if the film is replicating the complicated athletic moves of its focus and it just as often fumbles the landing. Yet there’s still something absorbing and enthralling about it way it throws everything out there, class warfare, ambition, athleticism, domestic abuse, jealousy. It doesn’t all play out in harmony, but there’s a trio of lead performances here that rank among the best of 2017.

I, Tonya contains a wraparound faux-documentary framing of the events, and allows for events to proceed in often contradictory manners as the various characters give their insight and point-of-view. From Tonya Harding, as envisioned here, we’re witnessing an underdog sports story, a moment in time for her to overcome poverty, domestic abuse, and classicism to become a great Olympic-level athlete. Things get decidedly more complicated once we factor in the points of view of her mother, ex-husband, trainer, and various others with minimal to great insight on Harding and the controversy swirling around her.

At times this plays out in a thrilling combination of emotionally visceral terror and darkest of black comedy, like watching LaVona Goldman, Tonya’s mother, using her cigarillos like an extension of her hand to make emphatic point at a young Tonya about not fraternizing with her rivals. But then the film tips into uncomfortable or awkward territory, like watching LaVona kick out a chair from Tonya at a different moment. Sometimes I, Tonya goes for daring leaps and sticks the landing and other times it wipes out in a spectacularly messy fashion, but you gotta respect its ambition.

This uneasiness regarding Harding’s domestic abuse – first with her mother, then with her husband – colors much of the rest of the film. For all of the pathos that Margot Robbie and Sebastian Stan generate with the material, the film turns some of it into a punchline. This creates a weird feeling where the tone goes sideways and flirts with treating such serious, volatile material with flippancy.

Everything works much better when we’re stuck in Harding’s mindset and we understand the world through her eyes. Robbie’s portrayal doesn’t engender or demand sympathy for Harding, but instead lets us understand how persistent abuse, a lack of education, and other issues informed her. We witness her flailing about and not focusing enough with her athletic skills and gifts, letting them go to waste or being frivolous with her training. Harding becomes a frustrating figure because she distinctly lacks self-reflection and demonstrates a massive inability to accept her own culpability or blame for her life. She’s a perpetual victim, and Robbie proves her beauty and charisma aren’t the lone reasons why she’s been on such a career upswing, but pretty wrapping for an actress that’s demonstrated an incredible range in a short amount of time.

Just as good are Allison Janney as Harding’s monstrous mother and Stan as her abusive ex-husband. They’re colorful, showy supporting roles that allow both actors to alternate between going broad when we’re in Harding’s perspective to more nuanced people when we’re in their own. The two of them become the twin poles of Harding’s life, and frequently battle each other and label the other as toxic in a bit of cognitive dissonance that’s both terrifying and humorous.

That’s something of a reflection of the film as a whole, cognitive dissonance that’s both terrifying and humorous, as the film wants to implicate the audience, the media, and everyone else in the tabloid-ready sinew of the story, but it doesn’t always land that tricky landing. When it does, I, Tonya is a gloriously twisted affair, and when it doesn’t it becomes deeply uncomfortable. There’s a lot of meat here, even if the aftertaste is occasionally too bitter it’s still a dish worth dining upon.