I, Tonya [2017]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  RogerEbert.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (K. Jensen) review
Los Angeles Times (J. Chang) review
RogerEbert.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review


I, Tonya [2017] (directed by Craig Gillespie, screenplay by Steven Rogers), while certainly well written and well acted, revisits old wounds -- an infamous 1992 incident in which U.S. figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was kneecapped (hit with a baton across the knees) by people associated to rival U.S. figure skater Tonya Harding -- leaving potential Viewers to wonder _why_ dredge this story up again a generation later.

To be sure, the story mesmerized the nation 25 years ago, in part because _both_ Nancy Kerrigan (played briefly in the film by Kaitlin Carver) and Tonya Harding (played quite wonderfully in the title role by Margot Robbie) were actually from quite similar blue-collar backgrounds.  Yet personality-wise (and certainly how the Press made them out to be) they seemed to be polar opposites: Kerrigan, despite her own family's struggles to pay for her skating, sought still to fulfill the "Figure Skating Princess" expectations of the sport, while Harding in part because she had it an _even rougher time_ of it, and in part because, personality-wise, she just didn't want to "play the game," took a decidedly "F-U" attitude toward the snobbery associated with the sport (doing skating routines to heavy-metal music at times and so forth...).  The film portrayed Harding as someone who, despite "being poor" simply _loved to skate_ and then _was really, really good at it_.

Indeed, in one of the more memorable lines of the film has Harding telling the film's interviewer: "I was the first woman to successfully land a triple axel in competition and _no one_ can take that away from me, so ... f*** you."  And honestly, she's right.  To this day, a generation later, only eight women have done so in international competition.

So the film in this regard captures an aspect of Tonya Harding's story that most people liked, sympathized with and respected.  She was basically a female Rocky figure in a sport that had room only for Princesses.  Yet that "Rocky" background surfaced some unfortunate "Rocky's neighborhood" characters including her foul mouthed, count 'em _six times married_, chain smoking "I made you what you are" / "Gee thanks" mother (gleefully played by Allison Janney), her abusive boy-friend / husband Jeff Gillouly (played by Sebastian Stan), and especially Jeff's incredibly stupid BFF Shawn Eckhardt (played by Paul Walter Hauser) who served as Harding's "body guard" and was the one who directly ordered Kerrigan's kneecapping.  Harding and her husband apparently were just trying to "play mind games" with her (which they thought, and apparently had some reason to believe, was "fair play").  Sigh ...

What'd be interesting, honestly, would be Harding's own review of the film and I will post the link to it when I find it.


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