"There's no such thing as truth. It's bullsh*t. Everyone has their own truth, and life just... does whatever the f*ck it wants."

Rating: 8/10 (24 March 2018)

Ahh, the biopic - the film genre with arguably the greatest margin for error minefield of them all. How to tell the story of a real-life subject, not in documentary form, passing on all pertinent information while dodging a delivery drowning in cliché and inorganic exposition? Well, self-directed rhetorical question, I'm glad you asked that - because here is our latest answer. Behold: I, Tonya, a film that captures the quintessential zippy delirium of the wild, almost unbelievable ride of Olympic skater Tonya Harding's rise to fame and subsequently infamy without selling short the human story underneath the media histrionics. It's playful, clever, at once sobering and maliciously fun, and, without question, one of the most original, evocative, and punchy takes on 'based on a true story' seen in ages.
Pundits of Hollywood biopics often sneer 'why not just watch the documentary?' - so, appropriately, director Craig Gillespie sneers right back with an apropos Tonya Harding belligerence, telling his film as a simulated talking heads 'faux-documentary.' It's an inspired way of sidestepping clichéd biopic trappings, as well as amusingly toying with their ostentatious pretentious of authenticity, complete with the ambiguity of multiple narrators who aren't as much unreliable as overtly contradictory - of each other, and even themselves. Riotously entertaining a Rashômon riff as it is, Gillespie spoon-feeds nothing to his audience, forcing us to draw our own assumptions and conclusions on Harding and her entourage, assessing each of their own complicity in the train wreck their story would become. It can be emotionally disconcerting having to sift through the uncorroborated scenes comprising the narrative - were Tonya's husband and mother really as horrifically abusive as depicted here, or are their depictions exaggerated by Tonya's traumatic memories, or hyperbolic embellishments? And how responsible WAS Tonya for the attack on Nancy Kerrigan? Gillespie remains playfully coy, with a jet-black sense of humour underpinning proceedings no matter how violent or terrible they get, forcing the viewer to themselves decide how emotionally resonant they find Harding's story without the guiding influence of Hollywood conventions.
In many ways, I, Tonya is as much a p*ss-take on Hollywood conventions as it is a fleshed-out telling of Harding's story. Like Tonya, it's noticeably rough and disheveled on the exterior, with hazy lighting and (presumably purposefully) endearingly clumsy editing capturing the faded lycra aesthetic of a daytime true crime special aired at the height of Harding's heyday - appropriately tongue-in-cheek for a film that so actively confronts class discrepancies and the superficial nature of public performance and award ceremonies (resulting Oscar wins notwithstanding, naturally). Conversely, as with the real Tonya Harding, the film finds its truest elegance and energy through skating, as Harding's performance sequences are invigoratingly entertaining, conjuring the breathless thrill of watching a triple axel (as CGI seamlessly simulates Robbie performing the seldom-repeated stunt).
Still, it's unquestionably the cast who land the film's proverbial jump, perfectly committing to a tone so emotionally sincere it verges on histrionic, in keeping with the bizarre escalation of Harding's story. Margot Robbie is at her best as the titular Tonya, employing her vivacious charisma and rough-and-tumble belligerence as a feeble shell for a woman desperately seeking validation in all the wrong places. Allison Janney has a ball crafting one of cinema history's most awful mothers, her endless tirade of sarcasm and abuse as darkly funny as it is chilling (and getting surprising mileage out of bantering with a bird, to boot). Still, Janney is too deft a performer not to play the character's notes of regret and perverse caring, and they register like the faintest flecks falling off a monolithically colourful and resonant performance. Sebastian Stan bravely undercuts his roguish, dopey charm with a streak of jarringly disturbing violence as Tonya's caustically unshakeable boyfriend/husband, while walking cartoon Paul Walter Hauser embodies Stan's doofus partner-in-crime with such hilarious conviction, watching him side-by-side the real Shawn over the film's credits is almost unnerving.
A breath of sardonic fresh air amidst 2017's Oscar contenders, I, Tonya is a deceptively clever slow-burner, with surprisingly resonant critical commentaries on emotionally handholding Hollywood storytelling, domestic violence, celebrity culture, and how the judicial system is swayed by the popular media narrative. It's also the most memorable film about skating since 2005's simpering Ice Princess, and beats the sh*t out of it in terms of watchability, and even good skating. And if anything about I, Tonya would be likely to appeal to the real Tonya Harding, it's that.
-8.5/10