I, Tonya review

I, Tonya tells the story of Tonya Harding, the figure skater who came from a rough background to become one of the best figure skaters of her time, only to have her career derailed by an incident involving fellow figure skater, Nancy Kerrigan.

Before I saw I, Tonya I knew very little about Tonya Harding. Now I feel like I know more about her, her family, the people she surrounded herself with, her home life and her ex-husband, but the actual events involving all this are still up in the air. I will give credit to the film by stating at the beginning that the events in the film are based on "wildly contradictory" statements, so the true story wasn't ever going to be able to be told. But what is shown is interesting.

The film has several really good performances. Margot Robbie and Alison Janney are being recognised everywhere. But I'd like to give credit to Sebastian Stan and, especially, Paul Walter Hauser. Hauser really steels the show as a man who is convinced that he is doing some sort of national security job, when really he is just a man who doesn't appear to have a job and lives with his parents. His absolute oblivious nature to his real life brings the film its best comedic moments.

Overall, the film goes for a comedic tone. Even its structure is comedic (a mockumentary framing about a true story). However, this tone becomes problematic whenever domestic abuse is brought into the story. It is shown that throughout her life, Tonya Harding was a victim of domestic violence, from both her mother and her first husband. These scenes of domestic abuse usually follow, and are followed by comedic scenes. So whenever these scenes, which should be tense and dramatic, occur, there was a feeling of unease as though they were being played for humour. This wasn't just a feeling, as I heard laughs, some uncomfortable, from other people. I really did think that the handling of domestic abuse was poor and took away from how much I liked the film.

In short: I, Tonya is a well constructed, solid, tonally confused look into an athlete's path in life.