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Tonya Harding's Story Told with Humour and Tragedy


Few famous professional athletes are more worthy of cinematic examination than Tonya Harding, the controversial though misunderstood figure skater who rose to fame in the early 1990’s. However it seems very odd that it should be coming to us courtesy of Lars and the Real Girl director Craig Gillespie. I, Tonya tackles its subject and her life story in a tongue-and-cheek manner akin to the Coen Brothers, yet also maintains the legitimate drama at the centre of this aloof presentation, and it’s brilliant.
Having been pushed and abused all her childhood to be a great figure skater by her controlling mother LaVona (Allison Janney), Tonya Harding (Margot Robbie) faces backlash early in her career over her unorthodox candour. As she strives to be the best in each new competition, she also has to deal with an incredibly dysfunctional relationship with her husband Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan) leading up to the famous 1994 attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan (Caitlin Carver).
The narrative is siphoned through a mockumentary format as various characters, though mostly Tonya, Jeff, and LaVona, talk about Tonya’s life and career. These sequences are shown in a boxed aspect ratio and with an old video camera time stamp; in fact the whole movie has a very good sense of time, including plenty of great little details that go beyond simple fashion choices and hairstyles. The humour is the most notable feature of this biopic: the characters have big personalities and frequently make sarcastic remarks or respond to a situation in an amusing way you wouldn’t think fits in with real life. But the movie’s aware of the disparity, amending it by putting a lot of the comedic effort in the hands of the editors rather than the characters themselves. Tonya and others frequently break the fourth wall too, a more obvious cue this translation isn’t to be taken seriously. And also, while the characters may reflect on certain events and actions amusingly, it never supercedes their weight and truth. Jeff and LaVona are deadpan and sardonic when talking about their relationships with Tonya, but that doesn’t change the fact they were both very abusive to her, and played pivotal parts in her downfall.
This film is very sympathetic to Tonya Harding herself. She may not always come off nice or fair, but the movie makes it very easy to understand why she is the way she is. And Margot Robbie, who also produced the movie, is really superb. The highest point of her career thus far, Robbie is thoroughly enjoying this character, who gives her the chance to play both more comedy and more heavy depth than she’s gotten to with any other role. Her skating is quite impressive, as is her accent, and the whole performance is really heartfelt. I’m also glad to see Mckenna Grace putting her talents to something good as the young Tonya after last years’ awful Gifted. Sebastian Stan really gets a chance to shine in this movie as well, playing a toxic character who gets more eccentric and maddening as the story goes on. Allison Janney is a greater stand-out though, and I finally get that parrot she had at the Golden Globes. The worst sports mother, LaVona Harding is both the most enjoyable part of the movie and the most unlikeable character of 2017 -and Janney is freaking excellent! Constantly hostile and insulting towards her daughter but nonetheless humanized, it’s a magnetic performance that steals the movie -to the point that when she comments how she’s hasn’t had much screentime in a while, the audience is just as anxious for more of her. Julianne Nicholson and Bobby Cannavale also appear with some good moments themselves.
With someone like Gillespie at the helm, I, Tonya is also sometimes creative in its filming techniques. There’s the use of slow motion for scenes like Tonya’s first Triple Axle of course, but some of the other skating scenes, the ones with more at stake, are shot in long takes from Tonya’s point of view as you share in her anxiety. The most effective being the one where she famously broke down crying when the lace on one of her skates broke. There’s another great seemingly continuous shot that plays with the passage of time as the camera pans out of a room Jeff is in until he’s no longer visible, at which point he’s revealed in the next room and so on in a wonderfully smooth trick. The movie uses a lot of music at opportune moments well, though it could have picked a few more songs that haven’t recently been featured in Guardians of the Galaxy movies.
I, Tonya is a really unusual sports biopic, but one that uses its healthy mix of engaging honesty and quirky comedic tone to its best advantage. It’s immensely entertaining and funny, while also showing off some powerful acting and storytelling. A movie that’s fundamentally unique for its genre, I think it’s going to stick with people for a long time.
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