I, Tonya
2017 · Directed by Craig Gillespie
Original language: English
- drama
- comedy
The story
Competitive ice skater Tonya Harding rises amongst the ranks at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, but her future in the sport is thrown into doubt when her ex-husband intervenes.
What it’s like
Handheld, restless camera that breaks the fourth wall again and again, with talking-head interview cuts shot straight to lens, so the film feels like a documentary that has lost its patience with itself. The palette is washed-out Pacific Northwest: grey-blue rink light, cheap motel carpets in faded browns, a mall-parking-lot dusk, and a few hard, saturated skating sequences where the ice glows and the music (classic rock and 90s radio hits) hits like a shot of adrenaline. Sound leans on needle drops and bickering dialogue, with a sharp, sour comic edge. The vibe is abrasive, darkly funny and sad in equal measure, a bad-decisions-in-a-cold-town feeling best suited to a late night with friends or a sharp double feature. Its pacing is brisk and jittery, and its emotional core is a working-class woman who fights for recognition while being undermined by her mother, her ex-husband and a judging panel that will never fully see her, so the arc is one of defiant survival tangled up with self-sabotage. Intensity is high: domestic violence is depicted directly and uncomfortably, with slaps, a shotgun, and a brutal beating, plus strong profanity and cruelty throughout, though no gore. It is for viewers who like unreliable, rough-edged biography and can handle ugly realism alongside the comedy.
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