I, Tonya: Margot Robbie is Tonya Harding’s Most Redeeming Quality

©2017 - NEON

As Margot Robbie drawls in the final moments of I, Tonya: “America wants someone to love, but they also want someone to hate.” Tonya Harding exemplifies both the best and the worst qualities of an All-American athlete. Her career, filled with some of the highest highs for any American figure skater, was short-lived thanks to the infamous knee-capping of Nancy Kerrigan, America’s figure skating sweetheart, prior to the 1994 Olympic Games. She is the perfect fodder for a biopic. But I, Tonya does more than just humanize someone who has become a symbol for villainous and conniving athletes. This film reimagines the way biopics should be presented.

According to captions before the movie begins, I, Tonya is based on a series of conflicting interviews between Tonya Harding (an electrifying Margot Robbie in a performance bound to reshape her career) and her now-ex-husband Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan, who serves as a worthy sparring partner). Consequently the rest of the movie is a series of contradictions about Tonya’s life, career, and relationships. Viewers hoping to leave the theater knowing more about real Tonya Harding will be sorely disappointed. Framing the movie with interviews of Tonya, Jeff, and other figures tied to both helps distance the narrative from reality and create realm where each narrator is considered unreliable in some sense.

Beginning in her earliest years, it is clear that Tonya is living a troubled life. Though skating is her passion, she lacks the financial stability and social status as her competitors. She is immediately the black sheep, wearing hand-me-down handmade costumes and skating with an aggression that few other girls have. Her competitive fire is stoked by her emotionally and physically abusive mother LaVona (the scenery-chewing Allison Janney) who detests anything but perfection from her daughter.

Tonya's success is short-lived thanks to the mistakes of those around her.
©2017 - NEON

The young Harding begins finding success at the same time she meets Jeff, a then-attractive and awkward boy. At 15, the two fall head over heels with one another despite the constant abuse felt on both sides. Who abuses who is never really made clear as Jeff an Tonya’s interviews vary so wildly from one another. The only thing that is certain is their relationship was unstable. Such instability stokes Tonya’s competitive fire and she continues to climb the world of figure skating.

Before the Kerrigan incident, Tonya was most well-known for becoming the first American woman to attempt and complete a triple axel jump during competition. This was the move that landed her on the map and propelled her to her first Olympic Games in 1992. Attempting to replicate the move, Tonya stumbles and ends the Games in 4th place. When an expedited Games (they did another in 1994) gives her a chance at redemption, Tonya jumps at the chance to prove her worth. Her confidence is shaken in the run-up, however, by a death threat received at a competition and she begins to lose her mojo.

Enter her bodyguard, Shawn Eckhardt (played with foolish whimsy by Paul Walter Hauser). Believing the threat to have come from a competitor, Jeff hires Shawn to shake Tonya’s competition through a series of threatening letters to Nancy Kerrigan. Anyone familiar with scandals from the 90s knows this plan does not go the way Jeff expects. Attempting to hide their involvement, Tonya and Jeff distance themselves from the incompetent Shawn. When the dust settles, none are able to escape blame. Shawn and Jeff both serve time in prison and, while Tonya gets off with only probation, she is banned from figure skating.

Portraying nearly a decade of Tonya’s career, Margot Robbie is an ever-evolving chameleon. Those with claws sharpened to slash at Ms. Harding will find a new softness thanks to Robbie’s performance. Craig Gillespie’s inspired direction, however, will constantly leave them guessing if the Tonya on screen is a reality or a well-crafted deception. For me, it is easy to see where Tonya’s aggression stems. She had a terrible childhood and her choice of sport was a difficult one for someone of her social status. All she knows is fighting, which makes her turn into female boxing after being banned from figure skating an ironic one. Even as she insists on her victimhood, however, Robbie’s performance leaves a thin wall which creates doubt in her sincerity. This is a performance of contradictions that, in any other year, would be a top-contender for an Oscar.

Allison Janney is at her most enthralling as the monstrous LaVona.
©2017 - NEON

Less contradictory, but just as powerful, is Allison Janney’s turn as LaVona Fay Golden. Brash and ill-tempered, Janney barely leaves room for any other performers when she is on screen. She spits venom with every word and refuses to accept defeat under any circumstances. Her kind of love is not warm and fuzzy but there is a sincerity in all of her actions. LaVona, as portrayed by Janney, pushes her daughter in the only way she knows how: aggression. Prior to competition, Lavona hires a spectator to shout obscenities at her daughter as motivation. Watching Janney is like watching a speeding train: you’re always waiting for it to shoot off the tracks (and maybe it already has) but you are unable to look away.

Peter Nashel has assembled a winning soundtrack for this film that propels every scene forward. Momentum continues to build to the moment every audience is waiting for: when Kerrigan is on screen shouting “why, why, why?” After that moment, there is a little too much falling action and the film drags a little. But the build to that climax is worth every minute of the ride.

I, Tonya will not be remembered for its strong performances, winning soundtrack, or impeccable design. It will be remembered as the film that reshaped the modern biopic. Instead of a stuffy, overly-sentimental piece of Oscar fodder, this is proof that new biopics can hold all of the emotional levity of their predecessors without sacrificing any of the fun.

Did Margot Robbie change the way you look at Tonya Harding? Leave your comments below!

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