Review of I, Tonya (2017) by Christopher F — 10 Feb 2018

"I, Tonya" combines the style of "GoodFellas" with the icy comic raw energy of "Slap Shot" and the trailer-trash feel of "Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo." It's a highly watchable (and at times, highly cringe-inducing) black comedy that spares us no vileness and destroys whatever notions we may have had about figure skating being a wholesome sport.

Margot Robbie owns the role of Tonya Harding, whose rise to skating stardom collapsed in a tabloid sideshow after a 1994 attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan shortly before the Olympics. Her abusive boyfriend, Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan), and her nitwit bodyguard Shawn (Paul Walter Hauser) conspired to order the hit on Kerrigan's knee. Although Harding denied involvement, she pled guilty to hindering prosecution, receiving fines and probation.

That's the story you may know. The one you don't is of a working-class skater hounded by a crass, cursing, alcoholic and abusive mother (Alison Janney). Mom is colder than the ice underneath her daughter's blades, and Janney plays her with uncompromising foulness. We begin to root for Tonya as she trains relentlessly only to see her follow in her mother's trashiness by marrying Jeff. Domestic violence festers in this movie, and it's not easy to watch. Harding even raises the irony of how much she got clobbered compared to the attack on Kerrigan. We see what led up that attack from multiple points, including the comic incompetence of how it unfolded and the aftermath. All of this is framed by re-created interviews with the principal players in a mock-documentary style.

Those of you who love "GoodFellas" and its companion film "Casino" will immediately pick up on the film's frenetic style of rock music, fast editing and narration. I felt the film departed from this format a couple of times to try to make more of an emotional connection with Harding, but when it did, it just lost its edge. Robbie plays her as a sympathetic character, but not too much so. She tries to paint herself as a victim, but only to a limited degree. She would rather just skate and get what she feels like she deserves for hitting her jumps -- including that triple axle that made her famous.

"I, Tonya" also raises an interesting point about corruption in figure skating judging, one that we would see play out in the 2002 games when David Pelletier and Jamie Salé ended up with silver for Canada... and then gold when a judge revealed the fix was in for them. Did Tonya Harding fail to achieve a higher level of stardom because she wasn't a rich, wholesome girl judges liked? We'll never know the answer, but we do know Harding worked like heck to rise above it.