***Some spoilers for the story, but it is based on real life so you probably already know them***
Of all the movies that have been hyped up a lot recently, I am glad to say that I, Tonya absolutely stands up to that hype and deserves all the positive things being said about it. This movie was fantastic; from the casting, to the acting, to the pace, to the production value, to the editing; almost everything in this movie was fantastic done and put together. It is not a perfect movie but overall it was stellar and I not just enjoyed it but think it was really good.
I, Tonya is the telling on the Tonya Harding story. How she came up in the world of ice skating, her relationships with her mother and husband, how she became an Olympic athlete and was the first to land a triple axel in competition, and the "incident" where Nancy Kerrigan get attacked during the lead up to the 1994 Olympics. Starring: Margot Robbie as Tonya Harding; Allison Janney as LaVona Golden; Sebastian Stan as Jeff Gillooly; Julianne Nicholson as Diana Rawlinson; Paul Walter Hauser as Shawn; and Bobby Cannavale as Martin Maddox. The movie starts with the characters talking to the camera interview style, in the present, and telling the story. As they are talking about the events the movie goes back to Tonya starting out in ice skating and following her story up to the point of the interviews. The movie jumps between these re-tellings of the story and the chronological story following Tonya. I liked how there were comments about what was being told in the main Tonya storyline, and how the different characters pointing out what they say did or didn't really happen.
One of the things that I think works well in the movie is that is a true life story so it makes sense and is logical. The downfall of some based on real events movies is that the pacing and story arc can not be correct for the movie going experience, but with I, Tonya's story leading up to the "incident" it has the right feel of set up, build up, climax, and ending that works very well in a movie. The direction and production choose a great way to tell this story, with giving enough information about different moments in Tonya's life and all the things she was going thought. I really liked the pacing and was waiting for what I knew was coming and surprised at the little things that I didn't really know about the whole story. The whole journey of the story felt interesting and although I was anticipating the part that everyone was waiting for, I still engaged with what was happening at the moment.
The casting of the movie was fantastic, all of the actors were perfect in their roles and I really believed how they were and how they interacted with each other. They embodied the motivations of the characters with enough development to be pulled in but not too much to muddle up what was going on. I think that Margot Robbie and Allison Janney deserve all the praise they are received for their roles but I also think Sebastian Stan deserves to get more love about him as Tonya's boyfriend/husband, he was brilliant. Each character that was focused on drew me in, I understood what they were doing and their viewpoint. Their interplay and interactions felt real and believable.
I could tell that a lot of effort was put into the details of the time that the movie was set in and it felt like the 80s/ early 90s. I appreciated how the sets were staged and the look of some of the shots felt like they were older and fitting in with the time it was set it. It felt like it was actually that time and place not a stylized version that some movies do. It helps that it was not my era so I cannot be super judgy of the details just that it felt right to me. The music enhanced the experience as I noticed the songs in the background but they didn't become everything and take over what was happening between the characters.
The only real criticism I have for I, Tonya is the actual ice skating sequences. As Margot Robbie is not an Olympic level ice skater and whoever did the difficult ice skating sequences didn't look like Margot, the sequences felt produced and put together. It looked like it was produced and not preformed. If you have every spent any time actually watching ice skating it is noticeable that she didn't really preform it well and even the dancing parts looked forced. The cuts between her top half, her feet, and some of the full body shots just didn't look right and I could tell that they didn't really fit. It also didn't help that they showed some real footage of Tonya Harding ice skating at the end which just emphasized the fakeness of the sequences during the movie. It also didn't help that the routines felt like they were shown in real time, adding to the produced not performed feel. I did really like getting to see the ice skating sequence at the end and also the snippets of interview with the real people.
Overall this movie was fantastic and deserves all of the hype that it has. It is not perfect but pretty close. It felt like a lot of effort was put into the movie and the casting was perfect, but it didn't feel like the movie was too stuck on itself. It was telling a good story (the movie, not the actual plot), that drew you in and was paying attention to details, but not that it expected you to know that it knows that it is trying to be fantastic.
There is a lot of swearing and abuse in the movie so it may not be suitable for younger children but I think it was fantastic and recommend seeing it to anyone with the slightest interest.
My Rating: 4-
