Tonya’ isn’t a rare story of a flawed humanity.
There is barely nothing in this account of one of history’s most celebrated, if not most hated, figure skaters, that does not evoke familiarity. As a sports figure, Tonya Harding’s career is mostly decorated, only stained by a massive scandal that involves her and her closest rival, Nancy Kerrigan.
In 1994, Harding’s then lover and friend (later on, husband), Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan), orchestrated an attack against Nancy Kerrigan, to unable her from competing in the Lilehammer Winter Olympics. Gillooly and Harding’s bodyguard were immediately put behind bars. Harding, who was found guilty of conspiring to hinder persecutions of Kerrigan’s attackers, later on served her sentence of three years. The controversy sends Harding into a chaotic swirl, and quickly transforms her into America’s most hated sports figure..
Margot Robbie as Tonya, is an artistic force, pulling off an incredibly compelling performance that brims with moving empathy. She, alone, turns the film into an immersive spectacle of grace and horror, dealing with both human nature’s prettiest and most terrifying forms.
Director Craig Gillespie has no obvious reasons to be selective with such range of human complexity, as he derives a potent narrative where the good does not undermine the bad, or the other way around.
Here, Tonya is not just an embittered human being, bruised by her cruel circumstances, she is also a portrait of optimism, confined in an extremely pessimistic dimension. She is as vulnerable as she is strong. Robbie articulates Harding with emotional coherence that she manages to get across, her mostly misunderstood character.
Aside from Robbie, her singular performance is bolstered by powerful supports that grant the film some jawdropping absurdity and a distinctive visceral character.
Harding’s mother, La Vonna, who could vie for the ‘Worst Mother’ award, and easily win it, is pulled off by Allison Janney with sharp-edge precision. Janney is arguably faced with the tough challenge to make a corrosive character as disgusting and awful as La Vonna, still something to root for, and to her absolute credit, she triumphs doing so, by managing to shed light on the character’s dwindling sense of humanity. True, she’s a tough-to-love character, but she might as well be the most hilarious one.
Sebastian Stan is a deglamorized Buck, playing as Harding’s abusive partner, Jeff. His initial goofy sweetness is something every woman would go after, but he’s a devil wearing an angelic charm. Stan navigate Jeff with a nuanced articulation, and comes up with a prodigious undertaking.
A close-knit examination about human nature lurks in this uproariously hilarious attempt to mock its subjects. And while Gillespie’s entertaining Harding’s complex account through varrying, often conflicting perspectives, may possibly give some ineludible confusion, he weaves a completely profound narrative by turning its characters to something the audience can still relate with, and thus, root for.
Indeed, Steven Rogers’ script is made alive by the overwhelming amount of levity populating its proceedings, and the emotional resonance embedded in them.
RATING: 4.5/5
5 – Excellent
4 – Very Good
3 – Good
2 – Tolerable
1 – Terrible
‘I, Tonya’ opens in cinemas on Feb 7, Wednesday, 2018.
