Too early to say for sure, but might one day be a 'classic'

Rating: 9/10 (9 March 2020)

I first watched I, Tonya about a year after it came out, and immediately regretted having seen it at home and not on the big screen. It got lost amongst so many great releases around the end of 2017 and start of 2018, as it had been a surprisingly good year for movies, particularly around the awards season, with heavy hitters like Call Me By Your Name, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, The Shape of Water, and Ladybird all getting my attention over I, Tonya. It's regrettable but it happens, and at least I was able to watch and thoroughly enjoy it later on.
On my first viewing I had a very positive reaction, but my second, just a couple of nights ago now, was even stronger. I really, REALLY liked the movie initially, but now I think I love it. It's a maximal, bold, very ambitious movie, and as a result isn't going to get called 'perfect' by many people. But my favourite kinds of movies are often heavily stylised, fast-paced, genre hopping, and ambitious, and all these words apply and then some to I, Tonya, a film that I hope will continue to get better with age and potentially become labelled as a classic one day.
First off: it's good to comprehensively list and appreciate just how many things I, Tonya does throughout its two-hour runtime. It's a dark comedy, it's something of a tragedy, it's a sports movie, it's a harrowing look at two very abusive relationships- mother-daughter and a toxic marriage- it feels like a crime movie at points, and it's also a Rashomon-style look at the unreliability of memory and the conflicting ways people recall the same events. It does all this while also being extremely well acted, fast paced, stylised, and emotional. It might drag a tiny bit in its third act, which is perhaps the only real criticism I can give, but then the last scene or two provides a real emotional gut punch that makes the whole thing worthwhile, and puts everything into perspective. I remember the first time I watched it, I didn't think the movie pulled off having the different perspectives on the history it covered while also more or less taking Tonya Harding's side towards the end, but it worked better and more seamlessly the second time for whatever reason. It earned the right to sometimes humorously point out how different everyone's memories were, while also playing up Harding's perspective near the end for some truly devastating emotional moments.
I don't think Margot Robbie's ever been better, and if not for Frances McDormand's career-best performance in Three Billboards, she would have been a shoo-in for best actress (though that being said, Saoirse Ronan was brilliant that year as the titular Ladybird too). Allison Janney was also great, and deserving of her best supporting actress Oscar for her performance as Tonya's emotionally abusive, sociopathic mother. I enjoyed seeing Paul Walter Hauser too, after recently seeing and enjoying him in Richard Jewell, and I hope to see him in a whole lot more going forward.
The film moves at a tremendous pace, and while I felt it came close to almost sagging in its final act, it might only feel that way because of how breathless and exciting it is for its first two acts. I loved how biting, cynical, and fun it was, and then when it starts to expose how demonised Harding was, it suddenly gets quite heavy. There will be some who don't believe Tonya Harding's side of the story, and some who do, and then others who are in-between. I'm of the belief that even if she was more involved in the film's events than she let on, that her fate was still quite severe, and in a way the demonisation and ridicule of her through and by the media reminds me of the emotional and eye-opening Amy Winehouse documentary, Amy, from a few years ago. Both remind viewers that even if these people are flawed and at times outlandish or off-putting, they're still people. They're still going through real problems and real heartbreak, and while you can think that making fun of them is harmless, if everyone acts that way, we're only isolating them and potentially even ruining their lives. As Tonya Harding is still with us, I can say that I, Tonya isn't as devastating as Amy, and being born 1995 myself, I can feel guilt-free when it comes to the societal ridicule Harding went through (I'm sure I made Winehouse jokes as a teenager though, and so that documentary really did make me feel a tremendous amount of guilt).
Anyway, I'm rambling. This movie is great, it's only got a couple of minor problems here and there, and those flaws can be overlooked quite easily because of how good the good stuff is. If this one flew under your radar like it did mine back in 2017, make sure you give it a watch. It's got some great performances, style for days, solid comedy, and genuine pathos. I look forward to the next time I revisit it, and can say that in time, it may well end up one as of my personal favourite movies from the 2010s.