Time to start up this new year of cinema with what will probably be the first of many movies “inspired by true events”. Technically it’s a 2017 awards contender that’s very similar in theme and tone to another recent release still in theatres, THE DISASTER ARTIST. That was a comedy set in the early 2000’s concerning the misguided efforts in making a film that’s now a legendary lousy flick. This one is set in the previous decade and also focuses on the misguided efforts, this time to grab olympic gold medals (and the fame and fortune that would no doubt follow). And those efforts would be judged illegal, luckily you can’t do “time” for making awful movies (image the prison overcrowding). With the crime element , the story veers from low-class, low-life laughs to true tragedy which swirls around the petite blonde who thrusts her index finger (oops, no it’s the other finger, that one) and declares “I, TONYA”.
The film is structured much like a documentary, with very recent “talking heads” set pieces of many involved (one is represented via a grainy late 90’s TV interview) relating the story that really begins in the early 1970’s. Coarse, chain-smoking waitress mom LaVona Golden (Alison Janney) is determined to make her little three and a half year-old (she says a “soft four”) daughter Tonya a skating champion. Coach Diane (Julianne Nicholson) has told LaVona that Tonya is too young, but LaVona orders the little beauty to hit the ice. Tonya’s a natural who is soon defeating skaters twice her age in all the competitions and tournaments. As she nears ten, LaVona is relentless with her insistence that Tonya (Mckenna Grace) be the very best, reverting to near-constant mental and physical abuse. This may be one of the reasons that Tonya’s adored father abandons the family. As Tonya (now Margot Robbie) enters her teen years she attracts the attentions of a suitor, the slightly older Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan), who spies her at the rink while hanging out with his inseparable childhood chum Shawn Eckhardt (Paul Walter Hauser). Much to LaVona’s disgust the romance leads to marriage. But wedded bliss doesn’t last long as the constant arguments climax in Jeff using his fists on Tonya. Nevertheless, she continues her climb to the Olympic team, as she feels slighted by the judges who score her not on performance, but on her appearance (“just not the image we wish to promote”). This culminates with the 1994 skating trials as Tonya competes against the more “refined” Nancy Kerrigan (Caitlin Carver). Jeff decides to try to intimidate Kerrigan via anonymous threatening hate mail, but Shawn takes things several steps further leading to the infamous locker room assault. During the resulting media circus, Tonya tries to keep her eyes on the prize, while law enforcement focuses on her hubby’s gang of goof-ups.
This familiar tabloid tale is given new energy by the gritty, powerful performance of Robbie as the “hellcat” we all thought we knew. Igniting movie screens just four years ago in THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, she could’ve scooped up the “glamour girl” roles in studio flicks, but here she takes a “walk on the wild side” that hits all the right notes. Her Harding is tough, obstinate, frustrating, joyous (as she glides over the rink), and fiercely competitive. And somehow we see the vulnerability, the little girl pushed rather than embraced. Much as Charlize Theron did with MONSTER, Robbie shows us her exceptional acting chops beneath the “cover girl” glitter. And what a sparring partner she has with the formidable Janney who is pure “dead-eyed” evil as one of the movies’ most memorable “monster mamas” (a touch of Angela Lansbury in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, a pinch of Lady Macbeth, etc.). LaVona is laser-focused on her skating star, the ultimate “stage mother”, one that explodes into violence with little or no warning. But she’s so dour, so mean, so sour that she’s a tad pathetic. No amount of medals will ever change her glare into a grin. ultimately she turns into a joke in the wrap-around interviews as she smokes and guzzles booze while a breathing tube fills her nostrils and a tiny parakeet pecks at her ear.
The rest of the cast offers great support to the two dynamos at the story’s core. Stan uses his “all-American boy” clean-cut looks to shock and stun when the “wimpy” Gillooly suddenly explodes with rage (where does this anger come from), much like a cursed horror character. He also excels in showing us Jeff’s frustration when he stews in his constant sweaty panic as the fed’s dragnet begins to tighten. This is particularly true in his exasperated exchanges with Hauser’s Shawn who seems adrift in his own world. When not shoveling fried food into his face, Shawn builds himself up, a blow-hard in the vein of Bugs Bunny’s verbose (not silent as with the Roadrunner) foe Wile E. Coyote (“see the card…it says SUPER GENIUS”). Hauser somehow makes this delusional dimwit aggravating and pitiful. Nicholson is terrific as the “good cop” to Janney’s very “bad cop”, as the skating coach that sees that talent in Tonya and tries to smooth her “rough edges” just a bit. Bobby Cannavale has a lot fun as the former “Inside Edition” TV reporter who’s a one man “Greek chorus” relating the media whirlwind around “the incident”. And Grace is heartbreaking as the pre-teen Tonya trapped by LaVona’s desires for stardom.
Director Craig Gillespie does an admirable job of keeping several “plates” spinning (the near-present day interviews) while guiding them toward the “Betty vs. Veronica” made for tabloid TV feast that fed the airwaves for countless days. While it would seem to ape the Christopher Guest-style “mockumentaries” in its opening sequences, the film soon finds its own voice when the subjects “break” the fourth wall during the flashbacks (“this really happened”). Kudos to screenwriter Steven Rogers for this clever conceit. Unfortunately these quips undermine some of the more horrific and brutal scenes of paternal and spousal abuse, softening their impact. Still Rogers doesn’t go for easy comedic targets, making Tonya, Jeff, and LaVona human beings rather than cartoonish “trailer trash” stereotypes (yet the scenes of Shawn’s oafish antics may be “shooting fish in a barrel”). Beyond the beatings and buffoons this film has as much to say about the clash of cultures and class system as LADY BIRD (honing in on that flick’s “Wrong side of the tracks” line). Those in charge of the skating events, the judges, board members, and assorted officials, wanted to present their champions as perfect princesses in dazzling gowns without a hair out-of-place. Tonya had the skills (quite a lot is made of her mastery of the triple Axel), but just didn’t fit the mold. She strained, sweat, and cursed, and those in charge would not tolerate this affront to the perfect fantasy model. Despite some technical glitches involving stunt skaters (Robbie head is digitally grafted like a pixel Bride of Frankenstein in some bits), and Robbie as a fifteen year-old (she’s good, but can’t quite pull it off), the film not only comments on class, but shows how this story took the news media down another, still current route. Near the end, Jeff sees the last camera van packing up, like the circus leaving town, just as his TV begins the march toward the next “feeding frenzy” involving another disgraced sports figure. In its foreshadowing, I, TONYA turns out to be a timeless tale.
4 Out of 5
