I, Tonya (2017)

The first time I ever heard of Tonya Harding was in 11th grade. The 1992 Olympics were happening, and our sports obsessed P.E. teacher had commandeered a TV on one of those wheeled stands, and set up a viewing party instead of having us play handball. So I grabbed a seat and watched hockey, speed skating, or skiing every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday over the next couple weeks. During one of those classes, we walked in to see figure skating on the TV. "Go ahead and shoot some hoops if you want, guys" P.E. Teacher said with a sigh, since no one wanted to watch figure skating, right? Half the class, including me, did want to watch, so we took our seats by the TV.

I grew up playing hockey, which is to say I was as comfortable in skates as I was in sneakers. If you don't  skate or have only ever skated a few laps around a community rink every winter, you might just think skates are skates. Well, you my friend are wrong. Hockey skates are not figure skates. Haven't you ever seen The Cutting Edge? Anyway, while I never had any interest in that type of skating personally, I was always in awe of it during the Olympics. So there we sat and watched Kristi Yamaguchi, Nancy Kerrigan, and Tonya Harding skate for the US. Harding didn't look like the rest of the skaters, she looked more like someone who went to school with us, that you would see smoking on the corner before class. She stood out, but also, she could skate. Then a couple years later that scandal happened and well, everyone knows about that.

Is this how you remember it? I ,Tonya (2017)

Twenty years later, we get I, Tonya from Craig Gillespie. Before going to see the movie, I watched an interview special done with Harding, who is now in her late 40's. The special gets into the incident with Kerrigan in '94, but it really focuses more on how damaged Tonya Harding was from an early age, but also how tough and determined she was. The movie turns all of that up to eleven.

Margot Robbie and Sebastian Stan play Harding and Gillooly, and lose themselves in those characters, but it's Allison Janney and Paul Walter Hauser who really steal the show. Janney plays Harding's abusive, chain-smoking, mother LaVona to perfection. Hauser embodies Shawn Eckhardt, the dopey friend of Gillooly's who believes himself to be an international man of intrigue capable of mind control, not a schlub living in his parents basement. I'm telling you, watch that interview or footage with some of these people before seeing the movie and it will only enhance your experience.

I enjoyed this film quite a bit. Beyond the great performances, the way they shot the skating scenes was intense- I got chills when she landed that triple axel. CHILLS! And not because they were at an ice rink. The 4th wall breaks by various characters, some long takes to ramp things up, and the overall look of the film was just right for the late 80's/early 90's. There were a couple things I was left wondering though. One was the absence of Harding's dad. He shows up a tiny bit and they have a pretty strong bond, but then her parents separate and he's out of the picture, reappearing again at her wedding. The other thing is the whole Nancy Kerrigan knee smash incident. Did Harding know more than she claimed? Did Gillooly? Will we ever know? Is this the longest blog I have ever written about a movie while hardly talking about the movie?

So far I would say yes to my last question. And probably not to the 3 questions before that. Because most of those people are so unreliable. Even so, this is a movie worth seeing, catch it at Cinemapolis (or wherever it may be playing near you) while it's there.