I, Tonya - This Week At The Movies

In 1991, gutsy figure skater Tonya Harding (Margot Robbie) becomes the first American woman to complete the very dangerous skating jump known as the ‘triple axel’ in-competition, becoming a media darling in the process. In 1994, her world comes crashing down when her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan) injures Nancy Kerrigan (Caitlin Carver), a fellow Olympic hopeful, in a bizarre and ill-advised attack, forcing Tonya’s rival to withdraw from the national championship. Harding's life and legacy instantly go up in flames as she's caught up in one of the most infamous scandals in sports history.

Pros:

• The performances are all very good. Allison Janney has been winning awards of late – including a BAFTA, notably – for her acidic portrayal of Tonya Harding’s demanding, Whiplash-esque serpent of a mother, while Margot Robbie has never been better as the bruised but unbowed figure skater, nor Sebastian Stan (probably best known for playing The Winter Soldier in the Marvel movies) as her messed-up master manipulator of a husband. They really are all excellent. Even the minor roles are great, especially Paul Walter Hauser as the impossibly idiotic “bodyguard” that pushed forward the idea that smashing Harding’s opponent’s leg in would totally work out okay.
• On that note, the story really is incredible. Even for those who remember the international media frenzy that surrounded the incident when it unfolded at the time won’t be aware of all the crazy details the I, Tonya team dig out here. The relationship between Tonya and her husband (and then ex-husband) Jeff is properly dark, and not for the faint of heart. Addiction, regression, domestic abuse… somehow this film is a ‘comedy drama’, but at times there’s not a lot of comedy at all, despite all the contemporary pop music and slick camera swinging.
• But that is part of what makes I, Tonya good: the bold, swishy directing choices from Craig Gillespie (Lars And The Real Girl, Fright Night), echoing the likes of Martin Scorsese and David O. Russell. It really is very dark, and occasionally very funny. Tonya's been a punching bag for everyone, and the film implicates the audience, but you’ll bond with the ‘character’ of Tonya as her defiance, stubbornness, her indomitability shines through. You may not laugh, but there will be gasps of laughter. Nowhere else will you see balletic domestic violence set to Fleetwood Mac’s ‘The Chain’. You have been, um, warned.

Cons:

• But that snazzy, showy style…. Hmm. For many, it’s a positive – for others, it’s a bit… icky, considering the topics at hand. All the rat-a-tat pacing may not sit well with some as the knives fly and the black eyes appear. It’s tough.
• You have to work hard to overlook the CGI used here. Some instances really are very impressive – and you may not even notice a lot of it – but the face-swapping between the professional ice skaters and Margot Robbie for the more technical manoeuvres is distracting, to say the least. Also not ideal is how young Robbie has to act, in particular early on the film. No matter how big her corrective braces are, you won’t buy the 27-year-old Australian actress as a 16-year-old petite Portlandian (though her accent is very good, to be fair).
• The other thing is how many fourth wall-breaking moments there are in I, Tonya. Personally, I really enjoy the odd “straight down the barrel”, talking-to-the-audience moment – I adore Ferris Bueller's Day Off, for example – but there are perhaps a few too many here, and at moments that jar with the ‘serious’ story being told. Janney walks away with one of the biggest laughs of the movie thanks to I Tonya’s willingness to bend cinematic grammar, but there’s an argument to be made that they should have toned it down a touch.

Three word review: Provocative, informative, impressive