Comedic tragedy, or tragicomedy?

Rating: 7/10 (28 January 2018)

The story of Tonya Harding is painted as a tragicomedy, maybe a comedic tragedy, as we watch a story self-admittedly "full of boobs." Tonya is abused by her mother and husband in nearly every way possible for her entire life, stopping short of plain torture.
There's some digging into what is truth, what is exploitation, and how the spectacle can feed on globalized media sensations of disfigured skaters. There's little more than a little digging into these deeper topics, because the centerpiece is Tonya, the unlikely white-trash star who proved them all wrong, all of them, a desire built upon hate of everything and everyone, surely due to nurture not nature.
The hanging, nagging question is whether Tonya would have had any success as a figure skater if she had grown up in a supporting, loving household. Could it have then been nature not nurture? The unlikely series of boobs and their actions led to an international feeding frenzy, to be usurped by O.J. Simpson's white Bronco ride.
The skating scenes fall with an intoxicating beauty, and Margot Robbie's own face paints the iconic binary masks of tragicomedy, defiant against all on-comers. It was never just about the skating, though, and the pace is unfortunately persistently jogged with breaking of the fourth wall, and light-hearted glibness which downplays and mutes the scenes of inexcusable abuse.
You, Tonya, you had the stuff of spectacle, the same stuff the spectacle devours for fun.