Bad Influences

Rating: Null/10 (16 March 2018)

The saddest moment in "I, Tonya" is when, at the lowest moment of her 23-year-old life, Tonya Harding is told by her domineering mother, "You done good! I'm proud of you!" As this is apparently the only genuine affection Tonya has ever received from her mom, she grasps the mother in an embrace...and then discovers that LaVona Harding is carrying a tape recorder, attempting to get a confession from her daughter about her culpability in the notorious Nancy Kerrigan incident.
The shattering moment described above is the culmination of the film's depiction of a tragic history of child and spousal abuse that plagued Tonya Harding growing up with her mother and later living with her rage-o-holic husband. At least from the filmmaker's point of view, "I, Tonya" offers a perspective on the figure skater's life that was not apparent to the public in the 1990s.
Director Craig Gillespie makes use of a quasi-documentary approach to Harding's story. Characters break the fourth wall and directly address the audience. We get different characters' perspectives on the rise and fall of Tonya Harding. It is a film style that offers an ironic and frequently humorous approach to what could have been a tragic saga. As Gillespie confessed in the DVD bonus track of the film, the script was "a crazy dance between tragedy and comedy."
Center ice in the film is Margo Robbie with the formidable challenge of recreating Tonya Harding. Robbie does not resemble Harding physically; Amy Schumer would have been a dead ringer. But Robbie apparently worked on becoming an accomplished ice skater, and, above all, she reached into the soul of the young woman whose entire life revolved around figure skating.
To the viewer, it becomes apparent early on that Harding was surrounded by idiots. With the exception of her devoted skating coach, Harding was on the receiving end of both physical and psychological abuse from both her mother LaVona, who pitches a steak knife into her daughter's right arm, and her cowardly husband Jeff Gillooly, who would beat her to a pulp and, on one occasion, shot her as she was attempting to flee from another beating.
At times, the filmmakers get carried away in their attempt to paint a sympathetic picture of Tonya. This is most apparent in the suggestion that the skating judges would downgrade her performances because of her dress or demeanor. But "style" is a component in competitive figure skating. Tonya Harding's style did not have the elegance of a Nancy Kerrigan. It did not even have the elegance of an amateur skater like Margot Robbie. Tonya's coaches could have worked with her more carefully on this part of her routines.
Still, the film offered an insightful approach to Harding's life story. By the end of the film, there is a fresh perspective offered on the much maligned Tonya Harding. Instead of being "loved, "hated, or "a punch line," the Tonya Harding of this film is a robust, multi-dimensional, and all-too-flawed human being. Much credit belongs to Craig Gillespie as director, Steven Rogers as screenwriter, and Margot Robbie for pulling off this miracle on ice.