Review of I, Tonya (2017) by Frame R — 28 Mar 2018

Who bashed Nancy's knee? "Not I, TONYA".

A biopic that encompasses such a wide period of a person's life is highly difficult to pull off. It's an exercise on compression and focus which has to be grounded on a though out script. Now, there's nothing groundbreaking about the occasional documentary-styled, sparsely fourth-wall braking, point of view shifting that are the stylistic and screenplay-related choices of this movie. It uses a more-or-less average editing to drive these choices forward. Often the Academy nominates the flashier editing works, movie which pull so much attention to the editing that that they seem like a child saying "look at this cut I made, dad!". And that's not necessarily negative and that can be achieved in positive ways but how do you choose this editing over one like, for example, Phantom Thread's in which every cut matters greatly and it's actually indicative of a hidden subtext? That is specially important on the ice-skating scenes in which the director could have taken pointers from the actual editing and directing made in those competitions to punctuate every part of the routine and have the boldness to have a wide shot. One thing that particularly doesn't help is the fact that the CGI isn't particularly good and, as such, I was pulled back from the ice skating many times, there's often something off about how the face interacts with the body on screen. The only sequence which does not suffer from this is the one when she brakes down and there was an obvious additional training from Robbie who seemingly does the not that complicated routine by herself and the camera uninterruptedly follows her. That's beautiful and credible, but in a movie with an editing that is so flashy that you're constantly being pulled back from it, it's easier to notice little mistakes. You lie in the bed you make after all. That is not to say that I didn't enjoy the film because I think it's very exciting and well-made. It's a character-driven movie and those are very captivating, specially Janney and Robbie do an excellent job giving life to theirs that needed a little more writing done. One couldn't solely be a caricature of white trash.I think figure skating is one of the most mesmerizing sports there is and this film's strongest selling point is the story it's based on. But you can't show the life of someone this brave and not dare to be as brave yourself. The lack of a point of view is a glaring defect, everyone in the story can't be right. In the end, it's a film whose plot deserves and aims for a triple axle, but fails the landing.