Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

I, Tonya Blu-ray Movie Review

Rashomon on Ice.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 5, 2018

As someone who has lived most of my adult life in and around Portland, I think I can state with some authority that in some ways at least Tonya Harding is the perfect Oregonian. First of all, she's a rugged individualist, one who absolutely refuses to bow to "conventional wisdom" on how, for example, "girls should behave". Related to this is the fact that Tonya was (and maybe even continues to be) intentionally provocative at times, as if to say to the world, "I really don't care what you think. This is me." Second, she's just combative as all get out, unwilling to be pushed around by either people in her life or fate in general, which is not to say she doesn't also have to admit that sometimes those people and/or fate were able to (momentarily?) get the upper hand. She's also a survivor, one who, to quote the old Timex ad, took a licking and kept on ticking, though she obviously bears the scars of years of bad decisions, both on the part of others but also probably undeniably by herself as well. Oregonians in general and Portlanders in particular pride themselves on "keeping things weird", and in the annals of professional skating, there's probably no weirder story than Tonya Harding's. It's I, Tonya's kind of cheeky premise, though, that Tonya's story actually depends on who's telling it, and this romp through at times slightly questionable accuracy derives considerable humor from how the supposed "facts" get refracted through various characters' versions of events.

It may not rise to the level of “eyewitness to history” that, say, some innocent bystander hanging out in Dealy Plaza on November 22, 1963 might be able to talk about, but one of the cooler things about my early history with my then girlfriend and ultimate (longstanding) wife was watching her at work in a Portland newsroom, where she anchored for one of the biggest radio stations in town, a station that was instrumental in first breaking and then reporting the developing Tonya Harding story after Nancy Kerrigan was infamously attacked on January 6, 1994. I was actually visiting her in the newsroom one day when one of the main reporters assigned to the developing Harding story literally came running in breathless saying we weren’t going to believe what he had, which turned out to be a recording he had managed to get courtesy of some kind of glitch in the matrix. Evidently a couple of tangential characters in the saga (including one who is featured in I, Tonya) had conducted a phone conversation that, due to the "cell" technologies of the time, had actually ended up getting broadcast somehow on a scanner. This fascinating little tidbit could never actually be used in a report due to the patently odd way it was obtained, but it nonetheless provided at least tangential and actually kind of tantalizing “evidence” (such as it was) that those surrounding Tonya were already perhaps beginning to be suspicious that she might have known something about the attack just a few days after it occurred. It's been fun to follow some of the social media posts by this very reporter and other friends and colleagues of my wife in the wake of the release of I, Tonya, since the whole "Tonya story" affected the news business here in Portland rather profoundly, with the film perhaps unsurprisingly reminding folks that there continues to be a rather startlingly wide array of opinions about this feisty if obviously troubled athlete and what has arguably become her biggest claim to fame, or perhaps more accurately put, claim to infamy.

Those of you who are aware of my longstanding deconstruction of Frances may not be particularly surprised that I tend to view supposed “based on a true story” depictions of fractured relationships between a mother and daughter with a somewhat skeptical eye. What's kind of fascinating about the mother - daughter dynamic in I, Tonya, though, aside from how factual it may or may not be (and remember, you're getting two versions at times anyway, one by Tonya and one by her mother), is how it's simultaneously horrifying and disturbingly funny, quite unlike the almost Grand Guignol histrionics of Frances. But much like the roiling relationship portrayed by Jessica Lange and Kim Stanley in that long ago supposed biography, the dysfunctions between LaVona Fay Golden (Allison Janney, Academy Award winner for this performance) and her daughter Tonya Harding (Academy Award nominated Margot Robbie for the bulk of the film, though little Maizie Smith and then Mckenna Grace have brief vignettes as well) are front and center from the get go in this film. Steven Rogers’ often acerbic screenplay has a whole kind of goofy “meta” aspect that includes supposed interviews with the major characters, but even within the ostensibly dramatized portions of the tale, characters will frequently break the fourth wall to address the audience, often bringing into question the very scene being played out, especially if it’s ostensibly being told from one of the other characters’ points of view. In fact one of the more enjoyable aspects to the storytelling here is the disconnect between the various "versions" presented not just by LaVona and Tonya, but a number of other characters as well.

The film quickly establishes that LaVona is not exactly a nurturing type, though in her defense she seems to understand that Tonya was almost genetically programmed to figure skate. She brings Tonya, then a “soft four” (in LaVona’s inimitable phrasing) to meet local coaching legend Diane Rawlinson (Julianne Nicholson), who takes on the little girl despite having major qualms about Tonya’s obviously chaotic family life. I, Tonya then segues forward several years (where Robbie takes over the titular role) to document both Tonya’s almost meteoric rise in the skating world, something that occurs despite her take no prisoners attitude and refusal to play a "girlie girl", as well as her troubled relationship with Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan). While the film has a certain edginess due to some fairly manic comedic aspects, there’s some genuinely shocking material here as well with regard to the smack downs Tonya gets courtesy of both LaVona and Jeff (smackdowns Jeff at least insists never happened).

In a way, the whole attack on Kerrigan (Caitlin Carver) is almost a sidebar to what is a kind of “Fractured Fairy Tale” approach toward Tonya’s life. For those who weren’t in Portland when the whole Kerrigan escapade broke (no pun intended), the sheer lunacy of some of the “supporting players” may seem like something unbelievable, almost like it could be out of a live action Chuck Jones cartoon. But the sad if amusing fact is, I, Tonya for all its gonzo proclivities actually does a relatively objective job of documenting this “Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight”. While some of the portrayals are definitely outlandishly over the top (particularly outsized Shawn Eckhardt, played by Paul Walter Hauser, who is almost always seen devouring some highly caloric foodstuffs), there’s also a rather surprisingly genial ambience to many of these dunderheads, something that provides a kind of unexpected counterpoint to the fact that they’re plotting an assault.

I, Tonya is undeniably funny, but it's comedy laced with an equally undeniable tartness, where the laughs may cause some viewers to actually think about why they're laughing. Robbie, who is considerably taller than the extremely petite Harding, captures Tonya's insolence along with a perhaps surprising amount of vulnerability and even sympathy. This is really a quite remarkable achievement, given the character's repeated refusal to accept any responsibility for some of her undeniable bad behavior (aside and apart from any involvement in the Kerrigan attack). But the film is probably even more memorable for Allison Janney's tour de force performance as the really despicable LaVona, a woman who herself refuses to apologize even after she throws a steak knife right into her daughter's arm. It's enough to consider making Lillian Farmer a candidate for Mother of the Year.

I, Tonya Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

I, Tonya is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Universal Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1 (some "confessionals" are in a narrower aspect ratio, as can be seen in some of the screenshots accompanying this review). I was actually frankly kind of surprised to see that, according to the IMDb, this has both 35mm and digital capture elements, because I really noticed no outright heterogeneity in the presentation. This is a nicely detailed transfer most of the time, despite some naturalistic lighting in already dowdy interiors, something that can lead to a somewhat subdued palette. It's obvious that director Craig Gillespie and cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis are going for a kind of send up of verité, not just in the "home movie" like confessional interstitials, but even in some of the patently absurd "fly on the wall" framings of the dramatized sequences. That stylistic choice means that things have a kind of gritty ambience here that may not provide traditional visual "pop", but which looks very organic and accurate to the artistic intention. This is a problem free presentation in terms of compression issues.

I, Tonya Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Some of you may know that there's a rock opera about Tonya and Nancy that I think may have even had its world premiere (or at least one of its first performances) here in Portland. I, Tonya's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track provides good support for what is in essence a kind of "Top 40 opera" in terms of a lot of old pop and rock tunes that provide regular underscore to the "festivities". The music, along with some of the skating venue sequences, probably provide the best overall surround activity, since a lot of the rest of the film is one person confessionals or dialogue scenes between two characters. There are a few moments of sonic energy when things like shotguns get fired (yes, shotguns get fired), leading to perhaps wider dynamic range than a supposed biographical film about a skater might be expected to have.

I, Tonya Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Feature Commentary with Director Craig Gillespie


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 17:25)


• Behind the Scenes (1080p; 15:53) offers five brief EPKs with some good interviews and candid footage.


• Trailers (1080p; 5:42)

I, Tonya Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I had a very funny and brief tangential interaction with Tonya many years ago, one that actually completely by coincidence included a woman who bore a striking (sorry) resemblance to Nancy Kerrigan, at a venue Tonya was checking out for a party where I was employed as a musician. Tonya struck me (again, sorry) as a kind of incredibly compact, intense force of nature, and Margot Robbie captures a lot of that intensity in her performance. That said, I really think this is Janney's film in a way, since her LaVona is so simultaneously reprehensible and hilarious. Technical merits are fine, and I, Tonya comes Highly recommended.