I Don't Know a "Tony Harding"

Rating: 8/10 (10 December 2018)

Visuals: The movie is very competently shot. The film grain on some of the interview sections was off putting, but other then that it was fine. Some shots were really good like when the hit man is walking into the training center and it's all one shot. The repetition of shots where she's sitting on the judging seat and loses in a competition did a good job of relaying the frustration she must have actually felt. In some of the 4th wall breaking scenes, the camera would zoom up to the face like a Bethesda game and its really jarring.
Audio: The mixing was pretty solid all around. The raised the volume of the scenes when Jeff is beating up Tonya, and it helped display the severity that it had on Tonyas well being. The music was a really solid blend of 70s/80s/and 90s which was used for Tonya, and classical music used for every other figure skater. The contrast of music helped in displaying Tonya's character and what her character is like compared to the rest of the skating world.
Plot: Having been based on a true story, and a large part of the film having been recreated from actual performances and T.V appearances, the story is one that is familiar, but at the same time brand new. The abundance of documentaries that have been made over this scandal have made the story common knowledge, even for those who weren't alive when it happened. So the focus of black comedy into the film really helped the story overall. Every time Tonya got physically abused by Jeff, it ended with her giving his "boys down under" a fair punch and managed to get a laugh out of me. The comedy made the darker parts of the movie way more tolerable, and had it not been there, the movie would have been a slog of terrible event after event. The 4th wall breaking parts like a mentioned earlier are jarring, but don't negatively affect the film. It happens around four or five times, and it's always there to confirm that the ridiculous facts to the story we're seeing are true, like Tonya training in the woods buy carrying sacks of potatoes or towards the end when she becomes a boxer. The interview scenes with the Sean character were really funny, and seeing the original interview after the shot-for-shot remake in the movie made it even funnier.
Characters: Margot Robbie us legitimately great in this movie. It totally redeems the garbage fest the was Suicide Squad, and is easily her best performance. She did a great job recreating the T.V appearances of Tonya, but still made the character her own. Allison Janney as LaVona was amazing and definitely deserving of the Oscar. After the credits rolled and they were showing the film of the actual people, I thought it was still the portrayal and not the real LaVona. The rest of the cast wasn't bad by any means, but didn't live up to those two.
+Great Score
+Two Main Performances
+Script
=Visuals