Review of I, Tonya (2017) by Mrdr4Gon — 15 Mar 2018

The anger that the film left me with on behalf of Tonya Harding (as portrayed here as a character, if not the real person) is a testament to how brilliantly put together the whole thing was. As a piece of writing, the film is mostly terrific (only faltering a little at the climax) the acting of everyone involved is ridiculously spot on, both in terms of performance and impersonation. The stylish presentation of the film is also to be commended, with solid direction, very strong, well timed editing and cinematography that managed to be incredibly involving and visceral at times without ever feeling in your face.

The only real faults with the film I could find was the jarring transition between 12 year old and 15 year old Tonya (I don't buy that something that looks like THAT aged 12 would look like Margot Robbie at the age of 15, there should have been another intermediately aged actress for those few scenes.) The aforementioned climax problem (possibly could have been solved through telling the story non-chronologically, but I don't know if that'd have made the story too hard to follow for some people as it is somewhat unconventional already in its support of multiple somewhat contradictory narratives) and most of all I think some of the more repetitive scenes could have been cut back slightly in favor of exploring other angles of the story in more depth.

Overall though the film was fantastic.