If you were going to play word association with Tonya Harding, the words that would pop up are things like: meme, stupid, white trash, joke, disappointment, etc. I’ve only known a world where the former figure skater was the butt of a joke. Like all great biopics, I, Tonya completely changed my view of the disgraced athlete. Now, instead of laughing at memes of Tonya Harding, I’m probably gonna tear up.
I, Tonya presents the life of Tonya Harding (Margot Robbie) up to and just after “the incident,” as they call it. The story is told via several unreliable narrators: Harding, her boyfriend/husband Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan), Harding’s mom LaVona (Allison Janney) and her pet bird, among others. We then see Tonya rise through the figure skating ranks in spite of all sorts of abuse from people she cares for. However, the figure skating world just wasn’t ready for a redneck and her problems, pushing Harding into a corner, where she enables “the incident:” where Jeff hires his doofus friend Shawn (Paul Walter Hauser) to beat Nancy Kerrigan’s (Caitlin Carver) knee so she can’t compete before the Olympics.
After watching I, Tonya, there’s no way to see Tonya Harding as anything other than the star of a Shakespearean tragedy. She realizes early on that figure skating is her talent that makes her special and loved. But latching onto Harding’s talent are awful influences. LaVona (as played by the always dynamite Allison Janney) channels the worst people on TLC’s Dance Mom’s; she consistently derides Harding for not trying hard enough and pushes her to hate her fellow skaters because they are her competition, but she does this for love(?) of her daughter. Because of this awful upbringing, Harding falls for Jeff, who is nice to her, but quickly runs VERY hot and cold, and openly hits her when he’s pissed. Even worse, despite Harding’s obvious skating talent, the figure skating judges score very subjectively, and because she represents the opposite of a traditional figure skater, her scores are much lower than they should be. Only when she starts landing the Triple Axel (she was the first female figure skater to do this) does she earn the acceptance she wants. However, she misses landing it at the 1992 Olympics, and she thinks that’s it for her. However, she catches a break: there will be an Olympics in 1994, which she qualifies for. However, during qualifications, Jeff and Shawn try to take Nancy Kerrigan out with her “blessing,” which was just a moment of frustration she clearly doesn’t mean. As such, ZERO members of the Olympic committee want her to participate. All of this plus the federal investigation into the Kerrigan incident consumes poor Tonya to the point that she almost misses her Olympic routine. Finally, after she competes, figure skating wants her out of the sport, and makes the judge ban her for life from the sport, even coaching. The scene in the courtroom where Margot Robbie is begging to be sent to jail but not banned from skating was probably seen by me in the past as a joke, but here, I was crying because Tonya Harding was losing the one thing that gave her what she truly wanted: love and acceptance.
Director Craig Gillespie shows us this story through not just one, but SEVERAL unreliable narrators. However, this technique works in this case because all these narrators are NOT smart people. In the effort to try to present the best versions of themselves, simple fact checking leads to heinous and delusional defenses that makes the characters that much more interesting. Yes, I think Tonya Harding is a more tragic figure now, but she actively assumes everyone is the cause of her problems for every situation, and takes ZERO responsibility for herself, so maybe mom was right. But LaVona has a parrot on her shoulder, not an angel: her “mothering” claims she made a champion when clearly it traumatizes and ruins Harding in vulnerable moments when Harding needs her mom most. Jeff comes off as meek and simple, making it easy to see why Harding could keep coming back to him, but clearly he has NO idea how to be loving and NOT abusive when she gets some fame. The big winner here is Paul Walter Hauser’s Shawn, who gets some of the biggest laughs in the movie with his claims of his skillset that fail even simple fact checking, and watching him try to weasel out of it is extremely hilarious.
I, Tonya is a great accomplishment. Like The Disaster Artist, it takes a forgotten easy joke and makes you rethink why this person is a joke. I truly hope Tonya Harding gets to coach skating someday, but in the meantime, at least we’ll get a chance to see her meet Tommy Wiseau at the Oscars, which his…hilarious.