I, Tonya

I didn't think I was going to be that entertained by this film, but given the way it is shot and the performances in particular (Margot Robbie and the incredibly exuberant Allison Janney, not to mention little McKenna, who shines everywhere, even if only for a moment in this film), I had to smile and just enjoy myself the entire time, also because of how interestingly the film is shot. (2018-01-24)

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)

It's hard to see such a wonderfully brisk, energetic and above all entertaining biopic, and the almost Coen-like humor suits this real, yet barely believable story immensely. The same can be said of the soundtrack, which almost perfectly underlines the dynamics of the narrative. The American figure skater Tonya Harding grew up a poor redneck with a psychopathic mother and a father who ran away from them. Her childhood was simply unhappy. Probably for these reasons she didn't look very feminine on the ice, but she was an excellent jumper of her time. I have to admit that Margot Robbie in the title role and Allison Janney as the tough mother really got under my skin, playing their roles so convincingly. (95%) (2023-03-21)

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)

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)