I, Tonya

Every year you think there cannot be another Olympic story you don’t know yet and still the creators always dig up something new. However, the figure skater Tonya Harding did not have a life story that one should brag about. On the other hand, it is so unbelievable that it would be a shame if we didn’t learn more about it. The film was lucky as it got creators who filmed it truly authentically. For example, you will not recognize Margot Robbie at all. She turned from a pretty actress into an American small-town bitch who loves figure skating and everything else bothers her. The fact that her husband beats her here and there won’t stop her from being famous one day, right? However, the human stupidity can stop her, and I have to say that I wouldn’t be able to invent a more interesting story of an Olympic athlete. The second half of the movie was truly unbelievable. I was just bating my breath while watching how far a person can go. (2018-01-20)

As excellent as the performances are, the true star of the film is Gillespie, the director, who managed put together a boisterous story with motivations that cannot be fully understood and where you don’t really have anyone to root for due to the moral ugliness of all the characters, and he did it in such an energetic and coherent way, comparable to Martin Scorsese at his best. I can’t remember any other film where I enjoyed so much the retrospective structure supplemented by the narration of the participants, all complemented with “Soderbergh-like” breaks in the shape of the remarkable soundtrack, on which the staging of many scenes depends, or the sudden time jumps for the sake of more striking twists. Under this barrage of great ideas and interesting (though awful) characters, it almost doesn’t matter than the runtime could have been shorter and the secondary plots better resolved. A welcome breath of fresh air to the stereotypic Academy shelves, it’s a pity that Margot didn’t get there, too. (2019-02-27)

This biographical character study featuring well-developed characters is interesting due to the contrast between the protagonist’s redneck nature and the refined world of figure skating, which is everything for her. The world from which she came and the crowd that surrounds her (and that she has chosen for herself) produce drama worthy of a genre movie, event though no lives are put in danger. Great actors, engaging athletic performances. (2018-03-04)

Yeah, I remember the controversy around Tonya Harding, but it was interesting to see the story background. Based on the title of the film, I was expecting a drama about how some athletes will do anything to participate in the Olympics. The story was weirdly fragmented, though, as if the filmmakers wanted to handle multiple themes at once, not fully focusing on any one of them. Despite some reservations, I was intrigued by the film, Shawn and his boys took care of the laughs, and I particularly enjoyed the mother-daughter relationship portrayed by Allison Janney and Margot Robbie. (2018-07-01)

The true face of America. I, Tonya skates along the borders between drama and comedy, but there is more truth in her story than it seems at first glance. A comedy about simple rednecks slips into a cruel family drama at unexpected moments and works with truth as it suits (parrot on the coat, shooting at the husband). The acting is super in all cases (particularly the mom is priceless), but Margot is plain fantastic and I think she deserves an Oscar. The American Dream inside out. I think that you really should kill yourself. (2018-03-04)