I, Tonya: Does It Stick The Landing?

There's an interesting story attached to seeing this movie. Well, for me anyways. Originally, my friend and I were planning to see The Shape Of Water. The only theater showing it was in Plainsville and there were only two seats left. Like an imbecile, I never thought of ordering the tickets online. We finally get there and we are waiting in line. Right before we go to buy our tickets, I saw on one of the TVs that The Shape Of Water had been sold out. Fantastic. We drove out here for nothing. Then my eyes fell on I, Tonya which was going to start in five minutes. I heard good things about this movie. Let me tell you, I am so glad that I got to see this movie.

I, Tonya is directed by Craig Gillespie and stars Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stan, and Allison Jinney. It tells the true story (depending on who you ask) of Tonya Harding (Robbie) as she rises in the ranks at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. However, when her ex-husband (Stan) intervenes, her skating future is in doubt. With all of that out of the way, let's dive right in!

I'm not going to try and sugarcoat it, this movie is phenomenal. Right when it starts, you know it's going to be an interesting ride. What makes this movie so great is the performances. Margot Robbie gives, in my opinion the performance of her career in this film. She does such a fantastic job in this role. I really believed she was Tonya Harding. The way she delivers her lines and the nuances made me forget this was Margot Robbie. If she isn't nominated for best actress, I'll riot. Allison Jinney, who plays Tonya's mom, LaVona Golden, is fantastic. There are some lines that I couldn't believe she said. It was kind of shock-value. LaVona Golden is a very tough mom who expects a lot from Tonya. Sometimes I wondered if she really cared for her at all. The chemistry Robbie and Jinney have is electric, which is important because if that didn't work, the whole film would fall apart. Going into this movie, I thought it was going to glorify Tonya Harding and make her this hero. To my surprise, it didn't. There are scenes when Tonya says something to the interviewer and the next scene completely contradicts what she just said. I thought that was a very smart thing to do because there is so much speculation about this story. Towards the beginnin of the movie, we follow Tonya when she is just a little girl. The actress that plays her (Mckenna Grace) is fantastic. She definitely has a future in acting. This movie is also funny. The humor mainly is from Jinney, who as I mentioned before, does a superb job and definitely deserves a Supporting Actress nomination. In the movie, there's a guy named Shawn (played by Paul Walter Hauser). He's Tonya's bodyguard and a friend of Jeff Gillooly (Stan), Tonya's husband. Hauser looks just like the real Shawn. It was incredible how much he looked and acted like him. The movie ends with footage of the actual people and Shawn came up. My friend and I looked at each other and I said to him, "They look exactly the same!" During the skating scenes, I was on the edge of my seat. I didn't know this when I was watching it, but when Tonya Harding does the triple axle jump, it was a visual effect. Margot Robbie didn't do it and it wasn't a stunt double either. The reason for this is that there are only a few people in the world who can do this. When the movie was being filmed, two of said people were training for the Olympics. I couldn't tell that it was a visual effect. It was very well done.

There are very few negatives about this movie. For a little while, we follow Tonya when she is 15 years-old. However, it's just Margot Robbie with braces. I wished they had hired another actress for this part. This next part I want to tread on very carefully because it's a touchy subject. A main part of this movie is about how Tonya is in an abusive relationship with her husband. Some of these scenes seem to be played as a joke. Sometimes Tonya will say something about how their relationship was a little rough and then we see them fighting each other. In the background there is some upbeat music playing sometimes. When watching it, I felt a little uncomfortable, because I felt like the movie wanted me to laugh, but I didn't want to be a jerk. There are some scenes that tend to drag on just a little bit. There really isn't anything I would take out though.

To sum things up, I,Tonya is a superb movie. It has great performances (Margot Robbie and Allison Jinney in particular), it doesn't glorify Harding, but rather tells the story with the most amount of facts as possible, and the skating scenes are great. I wished they cast a younger actress when Harding was 15 and I feel like the placement of abuse scenes was a little off. It also drags on a little, too. With that being said, this a superb film. If I were to rate it, I'd give I,Tonya a 9/10.