Review of I, Tonya (2017) by Grant S — 03 Jul 2018

Great movie - funny and emotional.

The life story of Tonya Harding, champion ice-skater. From her life as a young child to teenager to adult life everything centred on ice-skating. Then came the Nancy Kerrigan incident...

Great movie. Could have easily been a fairly dry paint-by-numbers biopic but writer Steven Rogers and director Craig Gillespie infuse the movie with humour and lightness giving it a great deal of energy and engagement. There's also a character-based side to it, especially in terms of how Harding's mother shapes her personality and views on life. This leads her to accept the abusive, dysfunctional relationship with Jeff Gillooly, her first husband, which brings about her downfall.

The light tone does change from a point, and it is a bit disconcerting. As things get more criminal, the lightness is replaced by a seriousness and the movie starts to resemble more the conventional biopic one would have expected. There is still a degree of humour: the bodyguard and the hired thugs take stupidity to another level (and, by the looks of things, this wasn't dramatized - they were really that dumb).

However, the come-down from the energy and comedy of the first half does make for an uneasy transition. There was no way round it though - it would have been inappropriate to maintain the level of frivolity considering what happens.

Ultimately the transition works out well, as the movie ends very emotionally.

Superb performances by Margot Robbie as Tonya Harding and Allison Janney as her mother. Robbie would not have seemed the right person to play an uneducated, working class, incredibly intense, foul-mouthed competitor with hordes of demons but she pulls it off with aplomb. Well deserved her Best Actress Oscar nomination.

Allison Janney won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance and the choice is hard to fault. She is fantastic as the aggressive, uncouth mother.