So much better than I expected

Rating: 8/10 (20 May 2018)

I recall the Tonya Harding - Nancy Kerrigan figure skating 'incident' from its brief period of saturation coverage in the news and sports pages, and I approached this film with a bit of trepidation. Maybe it would be a sequence of overacted clichés, or unending fairly dreary skating. But I need not have worried. It is wonderfully written and cast, and you just couldn't invent people and stories like those portrayed. I don't know how faithful to the facts it is, but I very soon stopped wondering as I was carried along by the story, the characters and the overall tightness of the whole production.
I thought Margot Robbie, was great in the Tonya role, and Allison Janney as her driven mother LaVone must have made nearly all of us appreciate our own mothers so much more. With ex-husbands like Sebastian Stan's Jeff, and body guards like Paul Walter Hauser's Shawn, plus her mother, it's amazing Tonya got as far as she did. The film's material states that Margot Robbie did all her own skating sequences, with some four months' intensive training. I'm sure this helped her embody Tonya's unwavering desire to make her mark on the sport, particularly (as she said) I don't have much else.
The film is a wonderful blend of documentary, biting satire and social commentary, all held together by the competitive figure skating world. You don't need to know or care about figure skating. The total package just fairly whizzes along.