Early on in I, Tonya, a darkly comedic biopic about Tonya Harding directed by Australian filmmaker Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl), a character compares the infamous former Olympian to America, meaning she’s a mess of contradictions: She’s a figure skater with a tough and tomboyish demeanor unbecoming of your usual figure skater; she’s a victim of violence and abuse who openly courts and actually seems to enjoy conflict and confrontation; she’s a lower class “redneck” thrust into an unwelcoming world of privilege and wealth. What little heart I, Tonya has lies in its recognition of Harding’s consistent reliance on institutions that repeatedly betray her, but the film ultimately gazes past empathy to look down on its subject. Filled with staged testimonials, voiceover narration and wordy monologues spoken directly to the camera, the film over-explains one of the most thoroughly discussed tabloid sagas of our lifetime, pouring over every tawdry detail and absurd incident without ever really getting to the heart of what makes the story so uniquely tragic.
Gillespie and screenwriter Steven Rogers frame the story as a faux documentary, opening the film with the characters being interviewed 20 years after what’s repeatedly referred to as “the incident.” For the uninitiated (what few there are), the story goes that Nancy Kerrigan, Harding’s arch nemesis on the ice and her primary competition headed into the 1994 Winter Olympics, was brutally assaulted by an unknown assailant during one of her training sessions. It was eventually revealed that Harding’s ex-husband Jeff Gillooly and her bumbling “bodyguard” Shawn Eckhardt orchestrated the attack; Harding’s level of involvement was the subject of intense scrutiny and remains a debated topic today. I, Tonya revels in the story’s comic horror and bizarre details, from the mafioso-style hit job—Kerrigan was whacked on the knee with a collapsible baton—to Eckhardt’s boastful and demonstrably false claims of being some sort of undercover counter-terrorism expert. Everything surrounding “the incident” is just so deliciously weird; it’s hard not to get caught up, and the film knows this.
Tied to “the incident,” however, is Harding’s triumphant albeit brief rise above poverty, obscurity and society’s perverse expectations of women. The filmmakers make a point to unpack the entire situation, even if they indulge in speculation and the occasional misremembered fact—an opening title card reveals the script was partially based on Harding and Gillooly’s own “wildly contradictory” personal accounts. As a meager satire of the media and the nascent 24-hour news cycle, the film indulges in moral haranguing and boldly underlines a series of obvious arguments, taking the same sensationalist approach to social commentary that the media took to l’affaire de Harding-Kerrigan. But as a character study, I, Tonya is often affecting, initially treated as an underdog sports story—a genre with which Gillespie is certainly familiar after his Million Dollar Arm—that begins with a young Tonya (McKenna Grace) finding solace on the ice while dealing with a lonely and difficult childhood.
A teenage Tonya (Margot Robbie, who portrays the character from adolescence through to present day) spars with her bitter and abusive mother LaVona (Allison Janney) and struggles with her impoverished means, a reality that infiltrates her professional ambitions. Discriminatory judges acknowledge her singular athletic ability but dock points for her shoddy homemade costumes and “rude family.” Her domestic relationships—first with her mother, and then with her abusive and manipulative husband Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan)—are an ongoing cycle of violence and cruelty, and the script frames her budding sports superstardom not only as a means to escape all that pain, but also as a catalyst in reshaping the milieu of professional figure skating. Tonya’s conviction is put on full display during a series of virtuosic—albeit CG-enabled—single-take sequences that are up close and personal with Harding on the ice, where Gillespie’s handheld camera mimics her balletic movements and athletic dexterity.
By the time we arrive at “the incident,” though, the filmmakers begin distorting and exploiting their underdog saga in favor of the tabloid juice they presume the audience craves. These moments are played for laughs, of course, but they’re rarely funny, the humor pitched somewhere between the 2000 film Drowning Mona and low-rent Coen brothers. The story becomes overstuffed with nostalgia and pop culture ephemera, undermining the increased tragedy of Harding’s plight. Worst of all, the filmmakers opt to bait and then condemn the audience for taking part, repeatedly implicating them in Harding’s continued abuse while seemingly unaware that I, Tonya is likewise piling on the situation. But the ironic distance created by the film’s mockumentary style isn’t enough to let them off the hook. During one particularly literal scene, Harding gazes through the screen and claims, “You are all my abusers.” Gillespie and Rodgers assume she’s referring to us, but by looking directly into their camera, she’s mostly referring to them.
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