Review of I, Tonya (2017) by Paul R — 09 Jan 2018

I've apparently been on a trend lately of "biopics of varying levels of sanitization," so I finally got to see "I, Tonya" today. I really dug it, I think it had some incredibly strong performances and a really unique framing device.

Basically the story is being told based off interviews given later in life by the various participants in the story, almost all of whom contradict one another. It ends up being a really dark comedy, because while most of the events in the story are varying degrees of tragic, those contradictions and juxtapositions of the characters' takes are played extremely funnily.

It does know when not to crack a joke though thankfully; the domestic violence scenes are pretty hard to watch. Allison Janney definitely steals every scene she's in with a pretty monstrous competition-mom, but I think the movie really lives and dies on Margot Robbie.

She makes one hell of a convincing and sympathetic portrayal with quite a range of emotions: one highlight scene for me was just a close-up of her in front of a mirror before a competition, going through a whirlwind of emotions all at once and portraying them all wonderfully.

A criticism for me would be, the movie treats "The Incident" with Nancy Kerrigan as the main event, and while it's pretty darkly humorous, the lack of involvement by Tonya in that section really made it drag.

And again I'm sure they glossed over some stuff to make this a more conventional hollywood under-dog story, but it did make for an extremely compelling movie.