Sharp turn on the ice
I, Tonya (R16)
120 mins ★★★★ 1⁄2
You’d be hard pressed to have made it through the 1990s without knowing about ‘‘Tonya vs Nancy’’ and the infamous knee-capping incident. Even in my relatively sports-ambivalent household, everyone had heard of a triple axel. With all the drama surrounding this Snow White and Rose Red of championship figure-skating, the 1994 Winter Olympics suddenly held so much televisual allure.
I, Tonya is reminiscent of last year’s excellent Borg McEnroe in that it may seem a little late in the day to delve into the legendary rivalry and outlandish personalities of a story a quarter of a century old. But like the tennis tale, I, Tonya delivers illuminating, heartbreaking insights into Tonya Harding’s childhood (raised by a tyrannical and uncompromising gorgon of a mother, a role which is already garnering Allison Janney deserved acclaim) and paints a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of a young woman who, ultimately, just wanted to be loved.
Central to the film’s solar system of sharp performances is 27-year-old Australian Margot Robbie, whose break-out role in Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street set her course towards superstardom and whose work here has garnered her first Oscar nomination.
Although she’s not entirely convincing playing Tonya at 15, once she’s lost the braces, Robbie embodies the self-consciously ‘‘white trash’’ champ-in-waiting (‘‘She doesn’t fit in, she stands out,’’ barks the mother) who knows her poor, uneducated life leaves her with one career option. It is understandable but gutting when she marries her childhood sweetheart and then pays the price – again, and again, and again.
Like the signature triple axel, director Craig Gillespie’s movie is fastmoving, exhilarating and requires lots of slow-motion so the audience can take in every detail. He hammers us with a period-appropriate pop soundtrack and cinematography that swoops around figure skaters and zooms into close-ups, evoking the crime caper of GoodFellas if not intentionally then inevitably.
Although heavily stylised and employing myriad storytelling forms (interviews, dramatisations, direct address), the method rather suits the audacious tale, with its larger-than-life characters and the Fargo-esque comedy of errors that unfolds.
To prove I can still be open-minded once I’ve taken against someone, it’s worth admitting I loathed Gillespie’s two previous films, The Finest Hours and Million Dollar Arm, for resorting to cliche egregiously. But, here, he has done a stunning job of harvesting the best of film-making’s cliches and using them to tell Tonya’s story with all the panache of an ‘‘Ice Capades’’ show that the 4-year old skater aspired to.
Thanks to sharp writing, the talents of Robbie and Janney, and, at heart, compassion for its subject, I, Tonya is frequently hilarious, crucially revealing and resoundingly enjoyable.
– Sarah Watt