Even though I watched (and loved) this film the first week it came out in theatres back in December, its arrival onto Netflix reminded me of just how good it was. After re-watching it, my thoughts on it have solidified, and my love for it has grown. Here are the reasons why I thought I, Tonya (2017, dir. Craig Gillespie) is an incredibly introspective film that took a real life event and transformed itself into a thought-provoking commentary on fame, media depiction, mob mentality, and elitism in the figure skating world. (Warning: major spoilers ahead.)
Here’s what you have to know either before or after watching I, Tonya: the film maintains a biographical structure, and sets itself up in a mockumentary format. Tonya Harding is a real life figure skater who was best known for two things: one, for being the first U.S. female figure skater to successfully land a triple axel in competition (which is one of the hardest skating jumps to master) and two, for being linked to an attack on her rival Nancy Kerrigan in 1994. Harding’s husband at the time, Jeff Gillooly, was guilty for planning the attack, and Harding pleaded guilty the same year for hindering the prosecution – which ultimately resulted in her being banned from professional figure skating for the rest of her life. Through the way the media represented Harding, she’s been made out to be downright criminal, and one of the biggest figure skating scandals of all time. In reality, the situation was much more complex than what it was made out to be. The film’s writer Steven Rogers took it upon himself to depict the events leading up to and after the attack by separately interviewing Harding and Gillooly in the last few years, resulting in extremely incongruous retellings from the two. (You can read more about Steven Rogers’ interview process in this Vanity Fair article). Rogers also used interview footage of LaVona Golden, Harding’s merciless mother, and other people linked to the Kerrigan attack, as the basis for their characters in the film. Ultimately, I, Tonya plays on the unreliable narrator structure, constantly bouncing between perspectives and timelines throughout the film. The movie is not necessarily set up to redeem the real life Tonya; rather, it offers a more in depth, complicated and personal lens that allows the audience to empathize with Harding in a way that the media did not do.
The film is comedic, yet unafraid to be frank with its darkness. It is also its “unreliable” nature that allows the film to be successful, because in never knowing quite who is right or wrong in the narrative, the audience must actively engage with the information that is given to them and make an informed decision themselves. While the true motives, recollections, and events may be unclear, what is clear is the abuse that Tonya goes through – be it verbal, physical, or emotional – from all the people closest to her in life. It outlines her broken family, and her cruel mother, who believed angering and belittling Tonya would spur her on to be her best self, never cultivating a loving relationship with her daughter. It shows the man who claimed to love Tonya, but would continuously abuse her and emotionally manipulate her. It shows the ignorance of the authorities to the domestic violence between Tonya and Jeff, despite numerous restraining orders she had filed against him, likely due to her status as a low-income individual. She is referred to as “white trash”, as unrefined, as standing out from the crowd in a world that caters to the wealthy. It shows the injustices that come with classist mentality, in the figure skating world and the world in general; the judges berate her time and time again that her stylistic presentation is not proper enough. She is arguably the best technical skater of her time, but never gets high marks from the judges. She tearfully asks a judge after a competition “Why can’t it just be about the skating?”, a frustration any person with a passion for their work can sympathize with. We see a true, raw representation of a professional sport that is obsessed with the “whole package”, the “wholesomeness”, and the wealth of its competitor. It shows the unfairly elitist and biased qualities of the figure skating world, especially at the time that Tonya was skating. Alternatively, we see that Tonya does tend to victimize herself at points, by always adding an “but that wasn’t my fault” after many things that led to her detriment. It’s tough for her to own up to any blame, but one can also understand this given the relationships around her that have resulted in mental and emotional manipulation.
The movie also details how ruthless the media can be surrounding a public scandal. A tertiary character – Martin Maddox, a TV producer – is subtly thrown into the mockumentary mix, emphasizing the questionable moral ethics of common media in a situation like Harding’s. Ultimately, this character shows us that through the intense pressure created by the media circus that Harding had to deal with, it is likely that this contributed to her demise as a professional skater.
The movie poses many questions; did she know about the plan? And if she did, was it the circumstances surrounding her, the unfairness of not being able to afford what she needed for competitions, the heavily biased judges due to Harding’s economic background, the abusive household that went unnoticed and ignored by authorities, the negative energy from loved ones, the constant insecurities and pressure, that led her to do so? Ultimately, the movie is not begging to answer whether she did it or not (though, it does seem clear that even if she knew about the plan, she did not know the level of violence the plan involved). The movie is there to outline Harding’s personal struggles, relationships, and own shortcomings, creating an incredibly dynamic and surprisingly energetic film. Margot Robbie does an amazing job as Harding, even going so far as to training in figure skating five months prior to filming. Alison Janney puts on a chilling performance of LaVona Golden, and Sebastian Stan pulls off the scarily volatile nature of Jeff Gillooly brilliantly. I, Tonya garners compassion for a figure who was seriously misinterpreted, and often reduced down to a villainous caricature. This movie emphasizes the importance of understanding all perspectives of a story as opposed to just what the media portrays. The media wants a story, the most dramatized version of a story, but is never quite there for the full truth – I, Tonya gives us this truth, and more importantly, puts it into the viewers hands to decide for themselves what they think the truth is.
~ Z ~
Photo by Paul Solomon on Unsplash
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