Despite ham-handed attempts to be winking or cute, a ballsy bio

Rating: 6/10 (4 June 2020)

The pretty little ice princesses in skating competitions around Portland in the 1980s find themselves competing with a rough-hewn, cigarette-smoking, foul-mouthed dynamo--one, Tonya Harding--whose specialty is the enviable triple axel. There is one major obstacle for our young heroine: the pristine sweethearts of the ice are walloping her in scores because, as one judge says, strictly off the record, "It isn't all about the skating." Years later, after finishing a dismal 4th at the 1992 Winter Olympics, Harding is granted "a second chance" when it's announced the Olympics will be returning in just two more years instead of four. Cleaning up her act (somewhat), and leaning on her abusive-but-obsessed ex-husband for support, Harding hopes to topple her main competitor, Nancy Kerrigan--a sometime-partyer who otherwise knows how to play by the rules; fate, however, intervenes infamously once Tonya's former-spouse and his low-life buddy decide Tonya needs a little help. Salty, ballsy biography of Harding (Margot Robbie), her tough-as-nails mama (Oscar winner Allison Janney) and her dumber-than-dirt husband (Sebastian Stan) gets the white-trash milieu down right, while the ice-skating sequences are pumped with excitement. Still, director Craig Gillespie goes a little cute on the cheeky asides, opening with 'funny', contradictory interviews of the principals, then flashing back in time to Tonya as a (soft) four-year-old skating under the thumb of her scheming mother. Perhaps Gillespie finally figured out what we surmise by the halfway mark: there isn't enough material here to sustain a feature (perhaps "I, Tonya" would've had more impact as a cable movie?). The director, the screenwriter, Steven Rogers, and the talented cast just about pull it off; you certainly don't end up caring about these unsentimental characters, but that's part of the enjoyment. Nobody needs to poke fun at them or look down on them--these mean, ignorant rednecks are funny enough on their own without any additional maliciousness--and watching them chasing their own tails in search of fame and fortune is the stuff of rich black comedy. Three Oscar nominations in all, including Robbie as Best Actress.