Runtime: 1 hour, 57 minutes
Rating: R
Director: Craig Gillespie
Quick Impressions:
When our waiter at dinner asked what movie we were rushing off to see, we quickly discovered that he had never heard of I, Tonya, and, to my shock, had never heard of Tonya Harding, either.
I was astonished. I mean who could forget the Olympic skater who (allegedly) caused the brutal bashing of rival Nancy Kerrigan’s knee?
His explanation? “I don’t have cable.”
“He’s too young to remember Tonya Harding,” we simultaneously decided as he walked back to the kitchen.
But then my husband really blew my mind by saying, “That all happened about ten years before he was born.”
I objected, “What?! That can’t be right.”
But it was. (Maybe more like eight years before, but our oldest was born in 2003, and this waiter didn’t look too much older, which meant, yes, practically a decade passed between the height of Harding’s fame and this amiable young man’s birth.)
I credit the media for making the scandal so vivid that it doesn’t seem possible for it to have happened a decade earlier than the birth of anyone old enough to serve spinach/artichoke dip.
But those of us who were alive in 1994 no doubt remember the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan incident vividly (or imagine that we do). Before watching the film, my husband remembered Harding for her athleticism, her unusually sturdy figure for a skater. I mainly remembered Nancy Kerrigan crying. I’m pretty sure my most vivid memories were generated by the news coverage. (They showed that clip of Nancy Kerrigan crying on a bench a lot.) I errantly recollected that both of Kerrigan’s knees were broken. Strangely, I couldn’t recall Harding’s ultimate fate (probably because the news stopped following her so closely after the Olympics when the story got old). As I watched the movie, though, some details did come back to me (like Harding approaching the judges in Lillehammer in tears over the messed up laces of her skate). But there was a lot here I didn’t know, had never heard before.
I will admit, even though the preview looked immensely cool, going in, I was skeptical about the film’s seemingly sympathetic take on Harding’s story. (I mean, they can say they’re basing this on interviews all day long, but Allison Janney brought Tonya Harding to the Golden Globes! On Janney’s part, it’s a kind gesture, especially gracious since there’s a real woman behind this thrilling, glossy, crazy ride of a movie. But Nancy Kerrigan is a real woman, too.) So I wasn’t sure making a movie about Tonya Harding was really in the best taste. As I watched, though, my reservations diminished, as I found I appreciated hearing Tonya’s side of the story. I thought it was nice to hear a version never presented by the press and even nicer to have it consistently undermined by competing narratives from Tonya’s ex-husband and others.
Since we had watched the Golden Globes earlier in the week, I watched I, Tonya with Allison Janney’s remarks about class division in this country in my head. Even if, like an early version of me, you consider Tonya Harding a somewhat sketchy subject for a biopic, consider that in this film Harding represents an entire (oft besmirched) segment of our population.
Start-to-finish, my husband and I loved I, Tonya, a fast-paced and fascinating movie, an unusually vivid biopic that pulls us right into the story and makes us feel as though the key events are still unfolding all around us.
Margot Robbie deserves an Oscar nomination, and I’m sure she’ll get one. Allison Janney (who just won Best Supporting Actress at the Golden Globes) will definitely be nominated, too. I’m hoping that the film also gets nominations for screenplay and picture. We really loved it.
Want to lend credibility to someone with unconvincing pleas of innocence of an extremely sensationalized crime? Here’s a trick for making a vaguely hated figure more sympathetic to a movie audience. Have her played by Margot Robbie.
I’m not being glib. Tonya Harding had a lower class background and unconventional looks for a figure skater. Margot Robbie is gorgeous, no matter how you try to dress her up. It’s just human nature. We’re far more likely to believe that a beautiful person is telling us the truth. On some primal level, most of us still equate beauty with virtue.
Over and over again, the film punches the idea that Tonya didn’t have the looks, style, and deportment to impress the figure skating community and, by extension, the American public.
But Robbie does. Not only does she have a traditionally beautiful face, but she’s also a talented actress, gifted at emoting, able to convey Tonya’s (probably sincere) feelings with more success than Tonya herself.
The one thing Robbie doesn’t have, of course, is Tonya’s skating skill. I loved hearing all the commentary about the difficulty of the triple axle and kept wondering, “Who is doing the skating? If Tonya Harding was the only person in the world who could do it then, surely, Margot Robbie hasn’t learned to do it for the movie. They must be using CGI.” They were, in fact, using CGI. And the CGI is pretty convincing.
Audiences love spectacle. I kept thinking as I watched this, “If you’re putting on a show these days, what’s fake often appears more genuine than what’s real.” All the specialized talent in the world won’t help you if the people watching have no specialized knowledge of that talent. A pretty face always helps. Most people watching the Olympics rely on commentators with specialized knowledge to form their impressions of what’s going on. What’s actually happening matters very little.
That’s why I find the film’s commentary-heavy, fourth-wall-breaking, near-constant narration a perfect way to tell Tonya’s story. It must have appealed to Harding herself, the ability of her onscreen avatar to control her own narrative. This time it’s her turn to give the commentary, describing in her own terms all the people who once judged her.
To be honest, I find Tonya’s own version of events extremely plausible. Is it true? How could I possibly know? But she tells a coherent story. (Also possible, of course, is the flip-side narrative that she was never abused but is herself the abuser, a sociopath of sorts.) The thing is, we don’t need to know the truth. Instead, the film gives us a commentary on the nature of commentary, a study of narrative, how it shapes understanding and sometimes even creates events.
The film’s warts-and-all presentation of Tonya and all her character flaws and mistakes lends great support to her insistence that she never ordered a physical attack on Nancy Kerrigan and never intended for any knees to be whacked. But in the end, whether she’s guilty or innocent matters less than these three things: 1) She was once the only female figure skater to land a triple axel. 2) The movie is able to make us care about her. 3) The movie shows and tells us just how easily our opinions are manipulated by what we are shown and told.
Besides being clever and well-acted, I, Tonya has the coolest music and really amazing editing. It moves gracefully from scene to scene with such fearless energy and an ideal soundtrack. It’s like one of Tonya’s own skating routines presented to an audience along with the proper context for appreciating such a routine.
I love the title, too, because it conjures up a gravitas not usually associated with Harding (kind of a mock I, Claudias) while at the same time suggesting that it shows us her own testimony about the events in her life.
Robbie’s performance is Oscar worthy, and so is Janney’s. I’m surprised that Sebastian Stan isn’t getting more accolades because he seems like he actually transforms into Jeff Gillooly. I also like Julianne Nicholson as Tonya’s first coach, that rare voice who corroborates much of what Tonya tells us. And Paul Walter Hauser is magnificent as Shawn (a character who must be mentally ill).
Best Scene:
The final meeting between Tonya and her mother LaVona is one of the most heart-wrenching moments I’ve ever witnessed. Both Margot Robbie and Allison Janney deserve credit for making the moment so palpably torturous. That exact instant when bemusement and hope turns to realization and despair (for both Tonya and the audience) hit me right in the gut and stuck with me long after I’d left the theater. In retrospect, the earlier encounter involving the knife clearly foreshadows this far more serious incident. There are some wounds that never heal. This unkindest cut of all is surely a fatal blow to their already troubled relationship.
It’s hard not to watch this movie and think of the other mother/daughter struggle of this awards season in Lady Bird. Both Lady Bird and Tonya have late epiphanies regarding their mothers, but Tonya’s is so much sadder.
Best Scene Visually:
My favorite thing that this fantastic movie does is let the real Tonya Harding skate for us in the credits. All that build up through the entire movie about the amazing and difficult triple axel that only Harding could do at the time. I felt myself dying of anticipation through the whole movie. Were we ever going to see it?
And how nice for Tonya Harding! My husband and I saw the film in a packed house, and everybody in that theater watched Tonya Harding give perhaps her all-time best skate. That must feel like an unexpected triumph to her.
I also like the scene featuring Margot Robbie putting on her make-up near the end of the film.
Best Action Sequence:
The recreation of “the incident” is pretty gripping, stunning because of the staggering bumbling of the so-called professional trying to do the job.
But my favorite action sequence is probably Tonya’s training montage. I love it when the movie breaks the fourth wall and has Robbie’s Tonya speaking directly to the camera, giving narration while acting out a scene. In this montage, her coach does the same thing, and the results are strangely satisfying.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment, Margot Robbie:
Tonya’s desperate attempt to reverse the courtroom judge’s decision is heart-breaking and feels so real. Robbie is excellent throughout the film and incredible here. Poor Tonya never learns how to win a judge’s sympathy. The film helps her out with that.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment, Allison Janney:
Like Robbie, Janney is amazing in all her scenes, though she plays a completely different type of character. The triumph of her performance is that she makes such a despicable, baffling, and unsympathetic character such a joy to watch onscreen. I’m personally fond of the stabbing scene, and I’d love to see Allison Janney win an Oscar because who doesn’t love Allison Janney?
The Negatives:
Nancy Kerrigan spent so much time playing the victim in “the incident” because she was the victim. I don’t know about real Tonya Harding, but movie Tonya Harding seems deeply confused about why Kerrigan received so much sympathy when she herself got none.
If her account is true, then Harding did have a very difficult life full of abuse, but she wasn’t abused by Nancy Kerrigan, whereas Kerrigan was attacked by someone potentially acting under the orders of Tonya Harding.
Maybe Harding didn’t fully know what was going on and was only minimally responsible. But Kerrigan didn’t know what was going on at all and wasn’t in any way responsible.
Of course Kerrigan was disappointed not to win gold. Yes, winning a silver medal in the Olympics is a great honor, but…
We get the idea that there’s a dimension to this story that Tonya Harding still does not understand. I wish that the filmmakers had convinced Nancy Kerrigan to participate. The story feels incomplete without her thoughts.
The film does a good job of showing us that Tonya still doesn’t accept any blame for the public’s dim view of her. Growing up with such relentless abuse seems to have altered her view of reality a bit.
The thing is, the movie is so much fun to watch, almost too much fun. Maybe I’m just the guilty type. Nancy Kerrigan was senselessly attacked, and Harding’s skating career was completely destroyed. How can a movie about such dark things be so much fun? I almost feel guilty for enjoying it so much.
Overall:
I, Tonya would make a deserving Best Picture nominee (and even winner). It’s also a safe bet for anybody looking for a good time at the movies. It really was a pleasure to watch. Plus all that triple axel talk made me weirdly excited for the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang coming up soon on February 9th.