I, Tonya

A Quick Search on IMDB: I, Tonya was written by Steven Rogers, directed by Craig Gillespie, and released in 2017.

Before the Viewing: I feel like I learned about Tonya Harding way earlier than I probably should have.

I don’t know how. I don’t know who told me. But I heard about her as a little kid, despite her whole Nancy Kerrigan situation occurring a full year before I was even born.

And it’s almost like that story followed me around before this movie came out. Like, if I was channel-surfing and popped on TruTV, there Tonya Harding was, commentating on something the “world’s dumbest” whatever-the-fuck was doing.

But the best content Tonya’s reputation has given me goes as follows:

My senior year in college, my roommate and best friend, A and I received the same email. We were told that the professors in the School of Arts and Sciences voted on who they thought should carry our gonfalon into graduation. They said that A had narrowly defeated me in the votes, and asked me if I would carry it should A not be able to.

It was a wonderful moment and we were both so excited. I wasn’t surprised that A won at all, as she is a wonderful person and was a model classmate of ours. I, for one, was only shocked that I got second place, let alone nominated by anyone.

Anyway.

After emailing back and graciously accepting, we both took to social media to post a screenshot of the email, and I texted my parents separately. My mother was really happy for the both of us (my family loves A) and sent back her congratulations.

Then my father, from whom I’ve inherited my dark sense of humor, merely said:

“Do you want me to pull a Nancy Kerrigan on her?”

And while I would never wish physical violence on anyone (unless they did something much worse than, you know, being good at ice skating), I laughed my ass off at this response, and so did A when I told her.

Obviously, he was joking, and A looked beautiful carrying that gonfalon in, limbs intact.

(My dad would probably get mad at me for posting this story, so…no one tell him, okay?)

Interestingly enough, I, Tonya came out the same year I graduated, but I never wound up seeing it, despite wanting to.

I’m very excited to start watching this, and more importantly, get back into writing this blog. I’ve missed it terribly, and I really didn’t mean to let the last nine or ten months get the better of me.

After the Viewing: Wow.

I was not expecting to be so moved by this. Like, I almost started crying near the end when Tonya tried to convince the judge not to take skating away from her.

That said, as much as I enjoyed this movie, I am in no way condoning what happened to Nancy Kerrigan. It’s deplorable and I’m glad people got punished for it.

I sincerely hope that Tonya didn’t know what happened, but I don’t know if I necessarily believe that and I’m not going to use a mockumentary as evidence to change my mind.

But, damn, I really liked this movie.

I am a big Root For the Underdogs kinda gal. Always have been, always will be. So, after watching this movie and going down the Wikipedia rabbit hole, it breaks my heart to know that Tonya was so looked down upon because she was “White Trash” and not as presentable as the other ice skaters. It all just reeks of classism and I hate it.

I can imagine that if I was, you know, alive before 1995 and, you know, a fan of ice skating, I probably would have rooted for Tonya.

But instead I grew up hearing about the attack and no matter how much she was involved, I will never condone hurting someone. Or even just faking death threats to psych out the competition.

I want my underdogs to win with merit, not underhanded tactics.

Come on.

Sorry, I’m just ranting about what happened irl, not the movie.

I haven’t seen much of Margot Robbie’s filmography, but I really enjoy her as a person, and after watching her perform in this movie, I was blown away.

I mean, I always saw Tonya Harding as some sort of boogie man, as I’m sure was the sentiment a lot of people got through the media back then. But seeing this movie humanized Tonya and touched me deeply.

You go, Margot.

Another thing I really liked was how the film was shot. As we’ve established earlier, I’m a huge fan of mockumentaries. But this movie was done differently.

While interviews were filmed and framed like an actual documentary, the rest is a rather straightforward narrative, but it also has the actors break the fourth wall. I thought it was genius.

Something I wasn’t expecting in this movie was how graphic the scenes of abuse were. Holy hell.

And I fucking love Allison Janney, but I hated LaVona.

She was so realistic as an abusive mother that it made me uncomfortable (and don’t worry, I thought Sebastian Stan’s abuse scenes were also deeply unsettling). I think it has something to do with the fact that she’s playing a real person. A real person who allegedly did all of those awful things to her own daughter.

I took a break to eat dinner with my boyfriend right after the diner scene, where Tonya tries to reconnect with her mother so she can give off the happy family vibe on ice.

And as I was going into our kitchen to get my food, I remembered how we just watched Hairspray, the 2007 version, and how ever since I saw that movie in theaters, I thought Allison Janney playing Prudy Pingleton was hilarious.

And while I also don’t condone tying your children up with a jump rope in a religious fervor, I know that Prudy is a character.

I don’t want to say that Allison Janney is great at playing abusive moms. But she is an incredible actress and I’m happy to see her in anything. (I just hated LaVona, okay?)

In Conclusion: I, Tonya was a fascinating biopic and I’m so pleased with it. The actors were all perfect in their roles. And I’d be lying if I said the character of Shawn Eckardt wasn’t amazing to watch.

Also, the fact that the real dude was actually…like that? Like, I mean the clip of him getting interviewed by Diane Sawyer in real life was mind-boggling.

I would totally recommend this movie if you haven’t seen it already. I still can’t believe that it came out five years ago. Feels like it was just yesterday I was seeing ads all over the place for it.