a story about class, gender, and violence

Rating: 9/10 (30 March 2018)

I didn't expect much from the film; I was not a Tonya fan or much of a fan of skating. But what this film reveals (to the accompaniment of the upbeat music of the period) is the class divide in the U.S. and the trauma of childhood emotional and physical abuse that devolves into spousal abuse. A victim of her mother, Tonya becomes a victim of her husband, and ultimately, a victim of the society in which she is always going to be the person who doesn't know how to behave, who walks around with seething aggression because aggression is all she has ever known. This is not the story of overcoming one's past to become a champion (as "Rocky" did), but the very real story of not being able to overcome the overwhelming burden of a past spent struggling against abuse from both her family members and a sport that demands a particular form of femininity from its athletes. The thrilling (and well filmed) skating scenes only serve to underscore the tragedy of Tonya's inability to escape her past and her identity; she is a sublime athlete with no chance of winning in this particular world. The film throws comedy into the mix in a way that makes watching bearable; the interruptions of the comic tone by the husband's sudden explosions of violence bring home to the viewer the terror of living under constant threat. We are told in the titles at the end that Tonya is now happily married with two children, but when she is interviewed, she calls out the interviewer and, by extension, the audience, for the injustice of her experience with the media circus. A thought-provoking, well acted and thoroughly entertaining film.