Sunday, March 18, 2018

I, Tonya (2017)

"I, Tonya" is an examination into the real people behind the TV villains created by the mass media. This now surrounds us, but was relatively new in the early 90s, when the film took place. That era was when the 24-hour-cable-news heroes/villains thing started (Harding, OJ[1], William Kennedy Smith, Rodney King).

The criticism I've heard about this film is that it takes a too-jovial look into Tonya Harding's life and "The Incident" (Nancy Kerrigan getting hit on the knee). This criticism is absolutely not true. The film depicts a tragic life, and is consistent with this tone overall. It has some comedic moments, but mostly around characters other than Tonya, Jeff, and LaVona.

The main feeling I walked away with is always lurking under the surface of every Twitter frenzy of public-shaming: the masses piling onto some person don't know all of the facts about this person. The mob doesn't know what they've been dealing with, or anything about them really. In the film, Tonya (i.e. Margot Robbie, the Tonya character), addresses the audience directly to this point, and that the public abused her. She's right.

I also think the film is on-point about the classism around the story, and I was interested in the called-out classism within skating itself. In the film, Tonya got low scores due to this, until they had no choice but to give her high scores (when she landed the triple axel in 1991 [2]). I have no idea if this is true about her story of skating overall, but it fits. Tonya was made out to be the trashy villain in every news story at the time. And ultimately the film implies that Tonya got to go to the 1994 Olympics due to the ratings that she would garner skating against Nancy Kerrigan.

The acting in the movie is great. I have no idea if any of these people are true to the people they are playing, but Margot Robbie, Paul Walter Hauser, and, of course, Allison Janney are remarkable.

Whether or not the film is completely factual is of course up for debate, and something the actors themselves point out in the film. Even so, I think most people will walk away from this film feeling that Tonya Harding was herself a victim, and her life (or at least skating career) tragic.

JSS Rating: Good/Good. I highly recommend this film.

[1] - "The People vs. OJ Simpson" was also very good.
[2] - Here's the real-life video of Tonya landing the first US women's triple axel, which they end the film with.