I, Tonya

 

I, Tonya 2017

• Director: Craig Gillespie
• Seen by this director: Fright Night, Lars and the Real Girl
• Based on the novel: no
• Cast: Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stan, Allison Janney, Julianne Nicholson, Paul Walter Hauser
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Margot Robbie – Once upon a Time in Hollywood, Suicide Squad, About Time
• Sebastian Stan – Black Swan, Rachel Getting Married
• Allison Janney – Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, The Girl on the Train, The Help, Life During Wartime, Juno, Hairspray, The Hours, Nurse Betty, American Beauty, 10 Things I Hate about You, The Ice Storm
• Julianne Nicholson – August Osage County
• Paul Walter Hauser – BlacKkKlansman
• Why? When I was a kid one of my idols was an Olympic figure skater.
• Seen: 23 January 2021.

             Sort of a true story. I sort of remember the Tonya Harding scandal.

       Tonya (Robbie) is a hostile, proud, oppressed, self-declared white trash redneck. But she could skate. This film is based on pretend interviews and others involved in her life and career.

       She is verbally and physically abused and relentlessly driven by her mother (Janney) who works long hours as a waitress to pay for Tonya’s training. Her boyfriend and later husband Jeff (Stan) abuses her too. She turns her self-hatred outwards and gets a Bad Girl reputation.

       And then she becomes the first American woman to perform the triple axel in public.

       The Olympic trials. The Incident (Google it).

       This is an unexpectedly dramatic and well-acted film with a harsh look at the politics and class prejudice behind the glamour of figure skating.

  4 ½ * of 5