“I, Tonya”– Movie Review

This week, I attended a New York Times Film Club screening of the new biographical drama, “I, Tonya”, starring Margot Robbie and Allison Janney. 

Synopsis

When Olympic skater Tonya Harding becomes embroiled in a scandal, what impact will this have on both her personal and professional life?

Story

Growing up in Portland, Oregon, little Tonya Harding is something of a skating prodigy.  At only four years old, she wins her first competition, somewhat pushed into it by her soulless mother, LaVona (Janney), who keeps her daughter under her thumb her entire life.  As her skating pursuits extend over the years, the teenage Harding (Robbie) grows to be a young woman defiant of her imperious mother.  This defiance culminates when she leaves home to marry the only boyfriend she’s ever had, Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan), a rudderless young man who has few ambitions and arguably less education.

Tonya’s reputation in the skating community only grows when she becomes known as the only American female skater who has successfully accomplished the triple axel feat.  Now considered among the elite, talk begins of Olympic competition in 1992.  While she succeeds in making the team, she fails to bring home the gold medal.  Meanwhile, all of this focus on her skating combined with an ever-expanding ego causes her marriage to suffer.  She and Jeff are physically abusive to each other and eventually, they separate when she finally has had enough.

With her life in tatters, Tonya learns that she may have another opportunity to compete:  instead of waiting four years for the Winter Olympics, the IOC decides the next one will be in 1994.  This provides chance to reconnect with her childhood trainer and prepare for another competition.  But one thing stands in the way:  her main American threat is Nancy Kerrigan, a young woman who is more palatable to the skating community.  Now back with Jeff, they learn of death threats that may be coming from Kerrigan’s camp to play games with Tonya mentally.  When Jeff’s friend Shawn (Paul Walter Hauser) hires a couple of goons to take care of the matter, things soon get out of hand – but will Tonya still be able to participate in the Olympics or will involvement in this stunt ruin her career?

Review

Oy, Tonya!  For those of us that are old enough to remember this too-good-to-be-true story about the soap opera that was Tonya Harding and company, it is something of a guilty pleasure to take a stroll down memory lane with “I, Tonya”.  Prior to 1994, few of us knew that the world of women’s professional skating was a full-contact sport.  Or maybe blood sport would be more accurate.  Such a genteel activity suddenly took on the verisimilitude of professional wrestling.  If this had been written as purely a work of fiction, no one would believe it because it was so utterly ridiculous.

With respect to the performances in this movie, the depth and breadth of Robbie’s acting skills are remarkable (she is also a co-producer of “I, Tonya”).  This often-glamorous actress truly comes across as the trailer trash the film’s subject truly is; while Robbie is a true beauty, the make-up artist successfully manages to transform her to look disturbingly heinous, possibly bordering on monstrous.  As good as Robbie is (and she’s great), Janney is that much better.  It’s foolish to try to predict acting nominations, but it would be a travesty if Janney was completely overlooked.  Yes, she’s just that awesome.

Technically, “I, Tonya” also gets high grades.  The movie is shot documentary-style, with interviews of the people involved many years after the fact (more accurately, interviews with the characters who are portrayed by the film’s actors).  This gives the motion picture something of a “Rashomon Effect” in the sense that each of the characters remembers things through the filter of their own reality.  Additionally, the camera is well-positioned in the skating scenes; rather than shooting it wide, we are actually on the ice with Harding, nearly giving the feeling that we are skating along side her.  One minor criticism is the too-frequent use of popular music from that era; it’s so intrusive (and at times, too on-the-nose) that you notice it and maybe even cringe a little.