Troubled life of gifted ice queen
I, TONYA (Cert 15; 119mins)
TONYA Harding was probably one of the most gifted ice skaters the world has seen. Her triple axel with double toe loop was a wondrous sight. But any appreciation of her talent has long been eclipsed by her notoriety. In 1994 her great skating rival Nancy Kerrigan was subject to a vicious attack and at the time it was hard to determine the level of Harding’s involvement. But after that no one was talking about her skating prowess.
I, Tonya is a suitably brash account of Harding’s chaotic, stranger-than-fiction life that unfolds like a mixture of pantomime and Coen Brothers crime caper. There is even a villain in the shape of Harding’s monstrous mother LaVona.
Director Craig Gillespie opts for the larger-than-life approach of a mock documentary in which the main characters are interviewed and allowed to give their side of the story. Who you choose to believe is up to you but by the end of the film you will feel very differently about Tonya.
LaVona (played to the hilt by a fierce Allison Janney) was the mother from hell. She was tough as old boots and hard as nails, making Tonya’s life a nightmare.
LaVona trained her the way the SAS train recruits. She was told to take no prisoners, treat every girl as her enemy and never complain. During one argument the woman even threw a knife at her daughter which landed in her arm. It was not a fun-filled childhood and it left scars that never healed.
The adult Harding is played by Margot Robbie, her face superimposed upon a professional skater’s for the more challenging moves. A huge problem for Harding is that she came from the wrong side of the tracks. She was white trash and seemed to model her look on Bette Davis as Baby Jane. Everything from her unrefined manner to her cheap, handmade clothes and frizzy perm upset the delicate souls of the ice-skating establishment. She was an alley cat and her rivals pampered Siamese.
Harding also seemed to have the worst luck in the world. When she finally escapes the clutches of her abusive mother it is a case of “out of the frying pan, into the fire”.
Her first boyfriend and subsequent husband Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan) settled arguments with violence, beating her for any act of defiance. Jeff was a walking disaster area who became a key figure in the plot to fell Kerrigan.
I, Tonya offers the kind of story you could not possibly make up – a tale of crime and punishment, class and poverty, pride and prejudice. In the end it feels as if Harding never stood a chance with everything that was stacked against her, especially that cruel mother.
But Robbie never plays her as a victim. Instead she invests her with all the determination and grit of a born survivor who takes all the blows and still comes out fighting. It is a gutsy performance that deservedly earned her a Best Actress Oscar nomination.
DARK RIVER (Cert 15; 89mins)
YOU may admire the artistry of Dark River but there is no
escaping the sheer misery of it. The doom-laden skies, muddy fields and bitter memories all underline the overbearing sense of bleakness at the heart of the story.
Returning to the family farm after the death of her father, Alice (Ruth Wilson) is determined to make a fresh start. She intends to assume the tenancy and make the farm a viable business once again.
But every corner of the rundown farmhouse and rat-infested barns triggers a memory of the past and of the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father (Sean Bean).
As if that was not grim enough her brother Joe (Mark Stanley) resents her return and there are unresolved issues that neither is able to articulate or resolve. You suspect this is not going to end well.
The two actors give committed performances but the photography is the real star of the film as Adriano Goldman captures images of countryside and seashore that could have been painted by Turner.
Dark River is beautiful but glum and uncomfortably melodramatic.
NATIVE (Cert 12A; 86mins)
NATIVE is very low-budget and low-tech, harking back to 1960s television series like The Twilight Zone. But it is persuasive enough to prove that science fiction movies do not always need massive budgets and elaborate special effects.
Cane (Rupert Graves) and Eva (Ellie Kendrick) come from a planet where telepathy is a vital means of communication. They are on a voyage to a distant planet where their mission is to unleash a virus designed to wipe out the population, enabling them to colonise it.
Cane starts to speculate on the nature of the planet they will visit. He also becomes obsessed with the Beethoven symphonies picked up as sound signals from the planet.
Loyalty and dedication start to fray as they travel nearer to their destination in a melancholy story that is heavily reliant on the two actors to keep it afloat. Native is virtually a two-hander, a film of ideas rather than spectacle, but its modest storyline is underdeveloped.
Graves and Kendrick give their all to an intriguing, resourceful but underwhelming production.
BIRTH OF THE DRAGON (Cert 12A; 95mins)
THE life of kung fu legend Bruce Lee continues to provide fertile ground for modern film-makers. Birth Of The Dragon is set in the San Francisco of 1964 and based on true events. It also feels as corny as any film Lee made before his premature death in 1973.
Here cocky Lee (Philip Wan-Lung Ng) runs a martial arts academy and is trying to break into films. When Shaolin master Wong Jack Man (Xia Yu) arrives in town it is assumed he has come to punish Lee for daring to teach Westerners kung fu.
A showdown seems inevitable and the film comes alive during the energetic fight sequences. But elsewhere it becomes bogged down in the romantic travails of white pupil Steve McKee (Billy Magnussen) whose blossoming love for waitress Xiulan (Qu Jingjing) puts him at odds with the Triads. Guess who he calls on to help him?
THE TOUCH (Cert 15; 115mins)
JULY marks the centenary of the birth of Swedish giant Ingmar Bergman. Celebrations are already underway with an extensive season at the BFI in London and selective re-issues playing around the country.
The most intriguing of those is probably The Touch, a 1971 drama charting the anguished affair between Karin (Bibi Andersson) and archaeologist David (Elliott Gould).
Karin’s husband Andreas (Max von Sydow) seems remarkably sanguine about the whole messy business but his calm, sensible manner is in stark contrast to the unreasonable, childish demands of David.
A jagged, mournful tale in which love makes fools of everyone.