I, Tonya (2017)
A review of I, Tonya directed by Craig Gillespie.
This movie has had a lot of hot buzz since it came out, and multiple people have begged me to watch it in the past, but I just never got around to it. Until now. I’m just not a Margot Robbie fan; any movie that I’ve seen her in makes me somewhat uncomfortable. Maybe Suicide Squad and the Quentin Tarantino movie were both bad decisions. I should’ve known those movies were bad, but still I sat and watched them anyways.
Anyways, I, Tonya, is based off of the story of Tonya Harding, a figure skater involved with the attack of her competitor Nancy Kerrigan in 1994. While the media sensationalized the story of Harding, depicting her as a demonic redneck who was out for blood while Kerrigan had a good girl image, this story aims to somewhat reverse that by following the perspective of Tanya, although it omits some crucial details (like she was actually involved with the plot and supposedly used money from the US figure skating organization).
Content
This is a story many might be familiar with, in one way or another. We begin the film in Tanya’s childhood, where her mother (cranked up to max abusive for this film) treats her like a punching bag. At four years old, she is forced to skate on the rink until she is literally wetting herself, with her mother cursing her out while she does so. Tanya’s father ends up leaving one day, as she weeps and stands in front of the car. The actress playing young Tanya is insanely good, I will say that.
Tanya, despite gaining more acclaim in the world of figure skating, is not taken seriously due to her socioeconomic class. She’s too redneck, having a foul mouth and a high-strung temper, and she can’t afford nice costumes. Thus she then begins to think everything is rigged against her and she switches coaches in rage because her current coach, Diane, wants her to fit in in order to be successful in this competitive world.
And then Tanya meets Jeff, where we, as viewers, begin to see her childhood abuse cycle come into play with her choice in men. The film really isn’t about how Tanya played a part in Nancy Kerrigan’s attack; instead, it’s more of a psychological study, showing this little girl who is quite literally the outcome of abuse and ugly situations. She settles for a man that beats her because she doesn’t know anything else. Her mother did the same to her and so now the cycle is just continuing.
The final arc of the film tends to jump into the attack, but that’s not as interesting for me personally. The charm that lies in this film is watching Tanya’s character develop, and we really get some good cinematic scenes as we keep watching through. The one scene that did me in was when she’s quite literally smearing dark blush on her face under white lighting, making her look like a ghost that’s trying to be seen. There were quite a few cinematic scenes, but that one stuck out the most to me.
Overall Thoughts
My very religious mother was extremely unhappy with the amount of cursing that went into this film, but I think her anger at it was kind of worth it (she wasn’t watching the movie). It’s a time capsule to a moment in history that has long gone by, but also shows us how women are often the brunt of crimes committed by men. Sure, Tanya was involved with this, but, at the end of the day, she is a product of something much larger than the crime she helped enact. This film humanizes her, turns her into someone we can actually relate to and feel sympathy for at the end of the day. And that’s why I think it’s worth watching.
