I, Tonya was a major surprise to me as I found it to be a super enjoyable film and an interesting commentary on such an infamous pop culture and sports moment.
Although the majority of people see Tonya Harding as a villain, the movie does a great job of describing her home life – especially with her mother – and how the relationship between her and her ex husband really affected her.
The most tense, and laughable moments in the movie come when Tonya and her mother are interacting.
The performance that Allison Janney gives as Harding’s mother is truly amazing and she shows the grit, and ruthlessness that her mother had when “creating” Tonya Harding.
Margot Robbie gives the performance of her career so far and is truly deserving of the recognition she gets for this role.
She presents Tonya Harding in a way that most people don’t see because Robbie depicts how hard Harding’s life was in the shadow of Nancy Kerrigan, but it also shows how clueless she could be at times.
It sheds a good light on the situation at hand with how Tonya was so wrapped up in the competition and how it was unfair that she was judged on her looks and not the skating which led her to became so unaware of events going on around her.
The movie builds up brilliantly to the moment we all know, and that’s when her boyfriend and his friend plan to injure Nancy Kerrigan so bad that she is unable to compete.
What’s interesting about the build up to this moment is that Tonya for the most part was put on the back burner for part of the movie because she initially wanted to just scare Nancy.
The closer it got to competition time the more she faded away from caring about Nancy instead focusing on her skate. She told her ex husband to drop it, which he didn’t. It shows how she allegedly was clueless of the crime that was about to happen.
The movie does a great job in helping us relive this moment in history that was not so long ago. It depicts family struggles, identity struggles, and relationship struggles of Tonya Harding.
All of these things played a huge role in Tonya Hardings life and they are overlooked because of this incident. This film does a great job of detailing the hard life Tonya had and that she isn’t this crazy ice queen.
My favorite part of the movie was towards the end where Margot Robbie as Tonya Harding gives a heartfelt speech about how much skating means to her.
She also goes on to talk about Nancy Kerrigan and gives a great monologue on Nancy’s attitude and how herself was always painted as the bad guy and Nancy as the ice princess.
I, Tonya is a movie that tells a story that hasn’t been told, and it allows us all to relive one of the most infamous events in sports history and pop culture in a new light.
I give I, Tonya an A
