She, Tonya

Rating: 8/10 (22 February 2020)

This was a pleasant surprise. Margot Robbie once again proves she has exceptional talent as an actor and, in this one, they don't even have to rely on her beauty to accent her skills, it's just raw talent.
Robbie isn't the only one giving an excellent performance though. Sebastian Stan is also going against type, losing his normally cool, tough guy act and slipping into the skin of a low brow and abusive spouse. Allison Janney is also remarkable as the tough loving mother that most of us have probably encountered at some point. Then there's PWH who I thought was just doing his normal slow hillbilly bit again until I saw the archive footage at the end and realized he was spot on in his performance.
The story was compelling. I was a little young and disinterested in figure skating to really remember any of the details and can't begin to say how accurate it is, but as a character study it's fascinating. It also manages to film the actual skating in a way that's kinetic and heart pounding.
That leads into a downside though. I understand that Robbie did her fair bit of the skating but she's not a figure skater and at times a stunt double was needed. The movie opts to scan Robbie'a head and plaster it over the double and it just looks off putting each and every time.
Bad CG aside, this was a very entertaining and stylized movie that I really enjoyed and would absolutely recommend it for the performances alone. That and any movie that can make figure skating interesting to me is doing something very right.