I, Tonya, Everybody's Favourite Punching Bag

Rating: Null/10 (24 January 2018)

The strength and crushing poignancy of "I, Tonya" is what lies beneath the perceived pedigree and nature of the movie. It is as much a dark comedy and fictionalized biography, as it is something else, something more, much more.
It is the sad and heartbreaking portrait of a deeply flawed and imperfect individual, who got caught in events that went way beyond her and her perceived or actual guilt.
It is the story of a human being screaming for help, in need of love and support, being ignored and overlooked at every stage of her strange, hard and often unforgiving existence. It is the story of a woman that was abused and brutalized while everyone, including the people that could and should have helped her, looked away and pretended it wasn't happening. It is the story of someone who was rejected and stepped on because she didn't fit with our idea of what a sympathetic character should be and look like.
Whatever Tonya Harding achieved in her life came through sheer will and yes, hard work. She also made mistakes, made a mess of things and failed often. What a human being should be allowed to do in life with the ramifications and consequences which come from that.
Ultimately this movie is an indictment of us as a whole, as a society, who turned on her and made her our distraction, a punchline to a sad and pathetic joke, exposing her to an unyielding torrent of cruelty and harshness. We cast the first stone and never looked back. Tonya Harding became everybody's favourite punching bag (pun intended), hung out to dry, transformed into the thing we most hate about ourselves, projected onto this one person.
All of this is wonderfully brought to life by Margot Robbie in a sublime performance, seconded most wonderfully by Alison Janney and Sebastian Stan. A well directed, acted, written and produced movie.
"I Tonya" is not perfect, but it is an eye opener and in these troubled days that is saying something.