(May Contain Spoilers)
This biopic film is sublime, the performances, the physicality, the black comedy, everything is beautifully put together by Craig Gillespie. Margot Robbie and Alison Janney are wonderful, you love to hate them, I was in hysterics at Janney’s delivery and the pair worked so well together. The moments of light and shade are well balanced, there is tragedy and jeopardy as well as humour and entertainment. An absolute must-see from me!
I, Tonya follows the story of Tonya Harding (Margot Robbie), former Olympic figure skater on her rise to glory and the scandal that brought her career to a halt. Beginning in 1974 when a four-year-old Tonya is pushed into ice skating by her mother LaVona (Alison Janney) to shut Tonya up. When Tonya’s talent grows her parents pull her out of school to focus more on her skating, but the marriage takes its toll and Tonya’s father leaves the family, leaving Tonya with her abusive mother. Tonya, now 15 with hair like Princess Diana and braces like Ugly Betty (2006-2010), meets 18-year-old Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan) who is hanging out on at the side of the ice rink with Tonya’s stepbrother and bodyguard Shawn Eckardt (Paul Walter Hauser).
Tonya marries Jeff, but the relationship becomes abusive and she tries to divorce him, leave him and take out restraining orders but she kept going back to him, even after he attempted to shoot her with a gun which grazed her face. Meanwhile, Tonya becomes the first female figure skaters to complete two triple axel jumps, although is marked down by the judges for presentation due to presentation of homemade costumes and ‘redneck’ attitude. Despite this, Tonya gets a place at the 1992 Winter Olympics, however, does not lands her jumps and after gets a job as a waitress. Her trainer meets with Tonya to tell her to train for the next Olympics, which is two years later rather than four.
Tonya begins to train again, however receives a death threat, which throws her off her game. Therefore, Jeff and Shawn come up with an idea to send Nancy Kerrigan (Caitlin Carver) death threats to throw her off her game to give Tonya more of a chance, as Nancy beat Tonya in the 1992 Winter Olympics getting third place when Tonya got fourth. Shawn, who thinks he is some short of CIA operative (which he is far from) gets some friends involved the carry out the plan with Nancy, however, takes it too far and his friends break Nancy’s knee using an extendable baton. Shawn brags about his accomplishment, which leads the FBI to him and also gets Jeff and Tonya in trouble to, although they didn’t know anything about the hit just the letters.
Throughout LaVona has been a spiteful, vindictive mother, however, hears of this news and goes to Tonya to tell her how proud she is, but later is revealed she was trying to record the conversation between herself and Tonya. The 1994 Winter Olympics comes up and Tonya fails to land her jumps and finishes 8th whilst Nancy takes home a silver medal; I guess you could say karma, but that’s if Tonya did know about the attack, which it didn’t look like she did. Tonya later goes to court over the attack and is suspended from ever competing in figure skating again and despite pleading the judge’s decision is final. The pre-credit ‘where are they now’ titles shows that Jeff is on his third married and owns a hair salon, LaVona moved to Washington and has no contact with Tonya, whilst Tonya took up professional boxing, but is now a landscaper, is on her third husband and has a seven-year-old son – she wants people to know she is a good mother -.
I love stories that are based on true and like Hustlers (2019), this film was based of real interviews about the events that unfolded. The film was well put together and the cinematography when Tonya was ice skating was captivating, especially the slow motion. The black comedy and delivery of LaVona’s lines were gold, I was in stitches throughout the first fifteen minutes! I thought Margot Robbie did amazing, however it was less convincing when she was playing the 15-year-old version of Tonya, but the hair and braces helped. The side-by-side videos of Tonya Harding’s first triple axel jump compared to Robbie’s was great, although showed how young Tonya really looked! I LOVED the characters and the clash of high society ice skating competitors and Tonya’s ‘redneck’ attitude. A must-see for anyone, I would recommend this watch 100%! Laugh-out-loud, tragic and charming.
Available now to stream on Netflix
コメント