I, Tonya Review

Here in mid-January we are thick into the Awards season as the Golden Globes and other award shows are behind us. Even though this has been a crazy year where no movie has risen above the rest to be a front runner for the best picture award at the Oscars, we have a general idea of what the major contenders will be. Looking over all of those, I have covered most of them on this blog already. The two major ones that I haven't yet covered are "I, Tonya" and "The Post." Right now we are knocking one of those two out with this review of "I, Tonya." I'll get to "The Post" next week as it just barely had it's nationwide expansion this weekend and I haven't yet had the opportunity to see it. There's a lot of the fence-sitters that I haven't had the opportunity to see, specifically "Call Me By Your Name," "Darkest Hour," "Phantom Thread," "Molly's Game" and "The Florida Project." Oscar nomination morning will tell me which of those I need to make a priority and I'll get around to said movies before the Oscars, but "I, Tonya" and "The Post" also stand as the final two movies that I've told myself I need to see before I make my end of year list of favorite movies. So it's these two movies, then onto that list. Get excited for that! But for now let's dive into the very fascinating "I, Tonya."

While I won't label this review as a spoiler review, I'm going to give you the warning right now that I'm going to dive more into the details of this movie than I normally do for a non-spoiler review of a biopic, so if you honestly would rather know nothing about this story going in, feel free to close this review and come back later after you've seen it. However, keep in mind that this is one of the rare situations where you will benefited by knowing more about this story surrounding Tonya Harding, which is why I feel comfortable giving more of the details about what happened because the movie itself actually expects you to know what happened and I need to talk about said events in order to explain why I became so fascinated with this movie. So you've officially been warned. "I, Tonya" is the story of Tonya Harding, an Olympics figure skater who rose to popularity in the late 80's and early 90's as in Fall 1991 she became the first American woman to attempt and land the triple axel at an international event. In 1994 she became the subject of controversy when she was involved in a scandal where an individual was hired to break her competitor Nancy Kerrigan's leg. Three people served jail time because of this while Tonya Harding herself was banned for life from figure skating.

Since I was only five years old when that happened, I wasn't one who knew about it right away and I don't follow figure skating enough to be super well educated on its history, but I do love the Olympics and I've also been a huge sports fan in general my whole life, so a movie about a controversial sporting event grabbed my attention right away, especially with how much positive buzz it's received throughout the festival season and on into awards season. So when it finally expanded last weekend into enough theaters where I was able to drive out and see it, I made that a priority because this seemed like it was right down my wheelhouse. I'm glad I did because this hit me on so many different levels as a sports fan, a movie fan and as a human being in general who does his best to not judge people so harshly. In terms of a sports movie, this is a uniquely complex underdog tale that manages to take your mind in so many different directions even though you know exactly where the movie is going. In terms of a movie, this is crafted in such a unique, unconventional way and has some powerful themes that should cause fans of film to sit down and spend hours discussing. And this will definitely make you feel bad for immediately judging someone you've never met.

I went into this movie expecting a typical biopic. And I was excited. I love a well-done biopic, even if it follows a typical biopic formula. And even if we went down the route of typical sports movie, I was excited for that, too, because it doesn't take too much for me to enjoy a good sports movie. However, right when the movie started, I was immediately shocked because it was obvious from the opening scene that this was not going the direction I thought it was going. The more we dove into it, the more I became uniquely fascinating in the way they chose to tell this narrative. It took me a while to figure out exactly what the appropriate way to describe this was, but I now feel comfortable in describing this as a fourth-wall-breaking, mockumentary-style, sports biopic. That's a bit of a mouthful, but it's appropriate. The reason why they did it this way was because when screenwriter Steve Rodgers interviewed both Tonya Harding and her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly, he got two completely different stories about what happened, so there was a complex puzzle that they needed to put together and the way they decided to put this together was a very creative decision. Tell the story using both perspectives and let the audience decide.

How do they do this? Well, this is where the mockumentary element comes in. We don't start the movie in 90's with the incident or when Tonya was a child. We start the movie in the present day with Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stan and Allison Janney dressed up as their respective characters, Tonya Harding, Jeff Gillooly and Tonya's mother LaVona Golden, as if they are being interviewed by the filmmakers to tell the story. As they are telling their stories to the camera, the movie then goes back in time so that we as an audience can visualize what they are talking about. But we frequently cut back and forth to our characters being interviewed and our story being shown to us as the characters will have commentary on what you're about to see, sometimes being one of the people claiming that everything we are about to see is completely false while the other claims it's true. Thus when we see the moment, we have to often take it with a grain of salt because the characters informed us that it may be false. Usually biopics will fictionalize certain events for their movie, but this movie has the self-awareness to inform the audience that there is a disconnect here that may be impossible to determine who is right and who is wrong instead of coming up with something on their own.

This made for an interesting narrative because the movie forces the viewer to decide on their own what to make of this whole thing. Was Tonya Harding a victim of her mother, her boyfriend, the Olympic committee, the media and the general public? Or was she a cunning con-artist who deserved all the scrutiny and punishment she got? Honestly I can see two different people walking out of this movie with either opinion and you couldn't say definitively that one opinion is wrong and one is right. The whole thing is very complex and ambiguous. Given that there is no consensus on certain details, I think this was the right way to go because it makes the movie itself very layered and complex instead of being a simple movie that attempts to portray our characters in one specific way in order to push forward their agenda. Instead the filmmakers let Tonya Harding tell her story from her perspective while letting the audience decide what type of person she is while also doing the same thing for her ex-husband and mother, as well as some other minor characters including various journalists and friends of both. I loved the idea that I had to think about everything to develop my opinion instead of having a filmmaker's opinion spoon-fed to me.

What I personally came up with was a strong reminder to not be so quick to pass judgment on an individual without carefully considering who they are or what they've been through. I will admit that I have seen the story of an athlete or a celebrity who's done something negative and without question I will jump to the conclusion that they are a horrible human being and move on with my life. And I'm positive that that's what many people did in 1994 when it was reported that Tonya Harding's boyfriend hired someone to break Nancy Kerrigan's leg and that Tonya was being banned for life because a judge ruled that she was well aware of what was happening and may have even been a major part of this. What a horrible human being! Right? Did people consider Tonya's background? Did people know that she had an abusive mother and an abusive husband? Did people consider that she was raised much differently than others and that certain things were all she knew? Did people consider the frustration she may have gone through when she consistently outperformed her competitors on the ice, but was given lower scores because she wasn't the golden girl they wanted to represent America? Did people consider that the judge's ruling may have been wrong?

I'm not necessarily saying that everything that Tonya did was good and right. In fact, I think she made a lot of poor decisions that led to these unfortunate consequences. Do I think her punishment was too harsh? Absolutely. There's definitely favoritism that goes on in professional sports, which has especially been apparent to me when I watch figure skating and gymnastics in the Olympics among other subjectively graded sports. But that doesn't mean I think Tonya didn't deserve some punishment. However, what really struck me was the idea that we often don't consider everything that leads up to these events and scandals. WHY did a player or celebrity act the way they did? What have the experienced in their lives? What is their family like? What was their upbringing? We often forget that everyone has a story and a reason for who they are as a human being. Before we judge them, can we instead take the time to consider their story? Put yourself in their shoes and see things from their perspective? And this doesn't even have to only apply to athletes and celebrities. You can easily apply this to your friends, your family, your coworkers and various acquaintances or strangers that come across your path throughout the day? What is their story? Why do they do what they do?

These are all of the thoughts that have gone through my head since seeing this movie a few days ago. Yes, this was a movie about a figure skater who got banned for life after her ex-boyfriend hired someone to break her competitor's leg. But this was a film that went beyond being simply a film to watch and either enjoy or be educated. This taught me a great life lesson and is thus a movie that I will remember for a very long time. I mentioned forth-wall-breaking happens in the movie. It's implemented quite cleverly. There's one specific moment where Margot Robbie as Tonya Harding looks at the audience and says we are all her attackers. That cut me deep. I realized that she was right. And not necessarily just when it comes to her, but with everyone around me who I may have unfairly judged or treated poorly. And moving forward it's something that I'm going to make a sincere effort to change. So I'd like to thank these filmmakers for this incredible film that they've delivered in the way they delivered it. I'd also like to thank all of the actors who put their heart and soul into becoming these people who were able to collectively teach me an important lesson about life as well as the actual people themselves for helping me learn not to have such harsh judgments.

You can tell this is a movie I really liked based on the fact that this is a super long review and I haven't even gotten to all I wanted to say. There's just so much depth to this story. So many layers to peel apart that it's been a daunting task approaching this review. I hope that reading this has helped you gain a sense of why this is such a special film, so I'll wrap this up without going much further, but before I leave you, I need to mention all the acting. Margot Robbie is absolutely phenomenal. She's able to perfectly encapsulate Tonya Harding and make you care for her despite the fact that she's been a punchline for the last 20 years. And she did most of her own skating, minus the more difficult stuff. Allison Janney is also getting a lot of attention and that's well-deserved as she does a perfect job at playing the angry, abusive mother. The other performances that are getting less attention that I would like to point out are Mckenna Grace and Sebastian Stan. Mckenna doesn't get much screen time, but she makes the best out of what she gets as young Tonya and is a young girl that continues to blow me away. And Sebastian Stan deserves a best supporting actor nod for his role as the abusive, yet complex husband who is equally as fascinating for different reasons.

I do feel bad giving you an 11-paragraph review for this movie. I usually like to keep it three or four paragraphs shorter. And I almost went back to re-write or edit this down to make it normal length, but I couldn't. There's just so much that I felt needed to be said in order to do this review justice. Even with all that said, there's still a lot that I haven't covered, but I'll call this good for now. In summary, I think the mockumentary style was perfect for this story. With Tonya and Jeff giving completely different perspectives as to the specific details, having the filmmakers decide to tell both sides of the story while letting the audience decide what is real and what isn't was genius because otherwise it would've been slightly less interesting had they picked a side and spoon-fed their opinion. It made for a lot of depth and a lot of layers with the audience having to figure things out for themselves. I loved the narrative. I loved all the acting. I loved the themes of the movie. I loved it when the characters would break the fourth wall because oftentimes those were the most poignant moments of the film. I don't even know what the appropriate score is for this movie. A number doesn't do this justice, but this obviously deserves to be pretty high, so for now I'm going to settle with a 9.5/10.