A Story Populated Solely By Boobs

Rating: 8/10 (1 September 2018)

As you're watching this the truth is that you honestly don't know whether you should be laughing or crying. It's the life story of Tonya Harding - the infamous American figure skater who ended up being banned from skating and with a criminal record after the attack on her fellow skater and American teammate Nancy Kerrigan in the lead up to the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. Written by Steven Rogers and directed by Craig Gillespie, this is a combination of biography and dark (very dark) comedy with some very sad dramatic content mixed in. I have to admit that as I waded my way through it, it brought up conflicting emotions within me. There are times when Tonya becomes very much an object of sympathy. Her upbringing is portrayed in nightmar-ish quality. I would rarely if ever use this term, but her family of origin (and especially her mother) are shown as the showcase of redneck white trash. Her mother is domineering, angry and shows no love for her daughter - except, mind you, that she does seem to spend most of the money she earns as a waitress on figure skating lessons for Tonya. But then, at the rink, she's the quintessential ugly sports parent - attacking her daughter, Tonya's coach, Tonya's competitors; foul mouthed, pushy. It was an incredible performance from Allison Janney, who won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Perhaps not surprisingly, Tonya then ends up marrying Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan) - who's portrayed as an abusive guy who's none too bright. Tonya's life is a nightmare. She contributes to it, of course, rather than rising above it - and by not being either able or willing to rise above it she puts herself at odds with the US figure skating establishment, who don't like her because she's almost the complete opposite of the elegant and beautiful Nancy Kerrigan.
And there it is - "the incident" as the movie refers to it; the attack on Kerrigan as her knee is smashed not long before Lillehammer in an attempt (unsuccessful) to knock her out of the Olympics. "The incident" is what every viewer is interested in; it's the only reason you'd even really know who Tonya Harding is. The incident itself only takes up a few seconds of screen time - but there's a lot of focus on the planning and on the aftermath. It becomes like something you'd see in the Three Stooges. Tonya is jealous of Nancy. Jeff decides the make anonymous threats to Nancy to play with her head. But he can't do it himself, so he enlists the help of his buddy Shawn Eckardt (a great performance from Paul Walter Hauser) - who imagines himself as some sort of secret agent/counter terrorism expert, but who's really not much more than a loser who lives with his parents and his fantasies. In this portrayal of events it seems to be Eckardt who pushes things too far. As you watched all this unfolding on the screen, you wonder how seriously you can take any of it. Often the characters come across more as caricatures than anything - it is, in the words of Hard Copy reporter Martin Maddox (Bobby Cannavale) "a story populated entirely by boobs." True enough. Entirely. You do feel some sympathy for Tonya, as I said, but in the end none of these people are anywhere near likeable.
Tonya was played by Margot Robbie. It was a strong performance, and Robbie was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar. She was, in fact, very good in the role - she played that redneck white trash completely believably. I have to give a lot of credit to director Craig Gillespie and whoever was responsible for choreographing the figure skating scenes. They were incredibly believable and authentic. I'm not sure that the format of the movie was entirely successful. It's told essentially as a series of snippets of interviews of the various characters, followed up by more traditional dramatic presentations of what was being talked about. I think that perhaps a straight movie format without the interviews might have worked better, although the portrayals of the interviews certainly gave us some feel for the various people depicted in the film.
I'm not sure that in the end I felt sorry for Tonya herself - nor do I think the movie was really going for sympathy. It does, however, give you an understanding of her background and upbringing and helps you gain some sense into how she ended up where she was, and you have a sort of grudging admiration just for the fact that she got as far as she did, and even for the fact that she was so resistant to conforming to the standards expected of a figure skater. But that admiration is linked with a sense of tragedy at the absolute waste of talent that her life ultimately represented, and at what she was ultimately reduced to as portrayed by the last little bit of the film. (8/10)