Director: Craig Gillespie
Talent: Margot Robbie, Allison Janney, Sebastian Stan
Released: 23 February
Pop culture is having a nineties moment. The exploits of OJ Simpson, Anita Hill, and Gianni Versace have all spawned acclaimed documentaries, films and mini-series over the past couple of years, and a television series revisiting the Monica Lewinsky scandal is in the works. Couple nineties nostalgia with an insatiable appetite for true crime, and it was only a matter of time before Tonya Harding got the Hollywood treatment.
The result is I, Tonya, a glossy black comedy that tells the warts and all story of Tonya Harding’s scrappy ascent to the medal podium, her involvement in a whack on skating rival Nancy Kerrigan, and her subsequent fall from grace. Along the way, we get an insight into the horrific abuse endured by Harding at the hands of both her mother and her husband Jeff Gillooly, and her struggle for acceptance by a sport unaccustomed to Harding’s skating aesthetic and garish outfits.
But while Tonya Harding’s story is ripe for a cinematic adaptation, I, Tonya is ultimately a shallow, flashy spectacle devoid of nuance or substance. It strives to be both a character study and a caper, but succeeds at neither. The laughs are cheap, the CGI is woeful and the soundtrack is stuffed. (There’s something to be said for a film having a limited music budget.)
Most offensive and jarring are its depictions of domestic abuse, which feature characters breaking the fourth wall to make snarky quips and wink at the audience. At one point, the film tries to admonish the public and the media for delighting in Harding’s humiliations. There’s something to this, but the delivery of this message is clunky and rendered hollow by the film’s decidedly nasty tone throughout. Margot Robbie elevates the film with her committed performance, but can’t quite save it.
For a comprehensive, balanced take on Tonya Harding, skip this and just watch ESPN’s 30 For 30 documentary, The Price of Gold instead.
Words – Amy O’Connor
