I, Tonya
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
It’s Tokyo Olympics time, so we’re getting a little into the season here at Films Fatale. Each weekday will involve a film relating to the Olympics in any way. They can be sports films or other genres, and real or fictitious.
The 2010’s saw some historical depictions done in electrifying ways. Works like The Wolf of Wall Street and The Big Short had portrayals of real life people — characterized by borderline cartoonish depictions of them — talking to us without a fourth wall even erected. These films can cut away at any point to deliver even more information (whether these tidbits are reliable or not). So, what would a work like this look like if it had some compassion? Enter I, Tonya: a testimonial picture based on the rise, fall, and uphill battles of one Tonya Harding. Depicting the many recounts of the events that destroyed her career as a figure skater (and the taboos that haunted her for the rest of her life), I, Tonya is an eccentric — yet earnest — look at someone who was destined to be misunderstood. It doesn’t help that the film has a ton of differing opinions (each person in Harding’s life gets a say), but that’s just what Harding’s legacy was meant to be, unfortunately: a complete lack of understanding of a recipient of continuous bad luck and fortune.
Harding’s promising skating career and Olympic bouts are all shown, as well as the personal dramas she had to face: a monstrous mother, an abusive husband, and a sport that she loved (yet it didn’t love her back). I, Tonya shows all of these events with dashes of dark hilarity and complete energy. The manic leaping from the different perspectives (which are also shown via varying visual and audible formats) makes you feel like you’re in a frantic mind that’s trying to both forget what has happened but also recollect how we got here in the first place. Steering this ship is Margot Robbie, who stars as Harding (and also helped produce this picture with her LuckyChap Entertainment company). Robbie is sublime as the disgraced skater, and she portrays her with the utmost sympathy and humanity. Not once (even during the film’s hypothetical excursions and daydreams) does Robbie feel like she is mocking Harding, or scorning her after a life of hell. Robbie balances every emotion, scene, and objective with pure perfection. At her lowest, you sense her complete desperation and anxiety. Otherwise, you get to know Tonya Harding from every angle, as if you were sitting right across form her. If Robbie wasn’t nominated in such a tough year, that Oscar was hers for sure.
Margot Robbie is at her very best in I, Tonya.
Pulling the ship in the other direction is Allison Janney, who did win an Academy Award for this film. She plays mother LaVona Golden, and she is absolutely terrifying as this hateful, blunt, angry maternal figure that forced her own daughter to live a life she didn’t ask for as a figure skater. The rest of the cast — from Sebastian Stan’s Gillooly to Julianne Nicholson’s Rawlinson — are great, but it’s the dynamic duo of Robbie and Janney that own this entire picture. I, Tonya takes on a number of creative risks in its multifaceted identities; it’s as imaginative as it is hyper realistic. With the help of the phenomenal performances, none of these experiments make the film feel uneven, since they all technically work with the presences within them. The end result is a work that’s as out-there as you’d expect, but far more moving than you may have anticipated. I, Tonya dares to find comedy within misery and relatability within one of sport’s most polarizing figures. It lands its triple Axel jumps effortlessly.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.