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I, Tonya -- a review


I had no interest in women’s figure skating until Tony Harding came along. No, scratch that. I had no interest in women’s figure skating until the “incident” occurred. That moment when ice skater Nancy Kerrigan got kneecapped was all over the news, and that incident--along with the sordid story that came crawling out afterwards--was such a WTF moment for me that I proceeded to watch everything about it, just like the rest of the country did. It was clear why Tonya Harding was so popular in figure skating--she came from a rough and tumble background, and her down to earth nature was nothing like the perfect little ice princesses whom the sport promoted. Many people liked Harding because they saw her as being one of them, an ordinary gal who made good.


But that surface veneer is far from being the actual story, here. In the new film, I, Tonya, ably directed by Craig Gillespie (who also helmed the superb Lars and the Real Girl), Tonya’s story is told from the beginning, where a very young Tonya was put into skate skating by her mother. As played by Allison Janney, Tonya’s mother is a backbiting, conniving harpy--and Janney is fantastic in this part, disappearing into the skin of a slithering viper who’s always emotionally manipulating her daughter when she’s not physically beating her. But Tonya’s relationship with boyfriend/future husband Jeff (Sebastian Stan) isn’t much better; they’re trading blows in some of the most savage depictions of domestic violence I’ve recently seen on screen.



Margo Robbie does a marvelous job as Tonya, solidly anchoring a narrative that has a lot of weirdo characters running through it. Robbie makes you care for Tonya, in spite of her darker shadings--and given the abuse she suffered from both her mother and husband, you can’t help but feel sympathetic for her. Still, the movie (while doing its best to follow the story set down by Harding and a few others who were involved) doesn’t present Harding as being an innocent babe in the woods. The attack on Kerrigan isn’t handled until about midway through the film, but Gillespie and writer Steven Rogers do a great job of ramping up to the “incident” (as the characters refer to Kerrigan’s attack in various faux interviews that run throughout the film) using a brisk pace and much dark humor.


There are some real flaming idiots on display here, and the humor--most of it hysterically funny--comes from scenes where these “geniuses” either badly mishandle or underestimate the situations they’re in. Having seen the actual case unfold before me on the news back when it happened, I wasn’t sure if I would like I, Tonya. After all, I’ve already seen the real story back in 1994. But I loved this film very much and highly recommend it. Because while I, Tonya is very funny in spots, it never loses sight of the tragic circumstances that helped to create this mess in the first place. The underlying theme of this film, that child abuse, as well as domestic abuse, causes ripples in our society that can reach out and hurt other people, is a stark message and is one that needs to be told. --SF




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