I, Tonya

An argument kicks off between a mother and daughter at a dinner table. F-words fly, then food, a plate shatters and finally a blade penetrates skin. It's a horribly unexpected moment that will elicit gasps from even the most hardened of viewers. It's not the kind of thing you expect to see in a biopic of an ice skater. But then again Tonya Harding wasn't your ordinary common or garden type of ice skater. And this film is far from an ordinary sporting biopic.

Tonya Harding had the misfortune to be lumped with an absolute weapons grade prick of a mother. The kind of parent who's life has turned bitter and who takes it out on her child as a result. Tonya was naturally gifted at ice skating as a youngster and should have had a happy childhood but instead spent it being physically abused and shouted at and being told she wasn't good enough. She grew up knowing only this kind of relationship and naturally it coloured her view of adult relationships. Her ice skating skills grew until she was competing at national level and seemed destined for greatness. But life and the people you meet along the way have an awful habit of messing things up for you. 

I loved this. I found it to be, despite some of the horribleness described in the last two paragraphs, one of the most blackly entertaining and gripping films I've seen in a long long time. It's a drama containing some of the darkest moments of comedy you'll ever see and it's not going to be for everyone but if you can make it through you'll be happy you did. It will make you think about perceptions you might have held onto for years. It's the kind of true story you think you know but you really haven't a clue about and it goes to places you'll never expect. It's also a story you couldn't take seriously if it was fictional because it's nearly too far fetched but because it's true you'll sit there slack jawed trying to absorb some the things you see played out on the screen.

Alison Janney & Margot are amazing as mother and daughter. One a twisted, snarling vicious creation that feels horribly real and the other the product of that creation, a woman struggling to stay in control of her life by hiding her bruised psyche behind a smiling exterior. It would have been very easy for the filmmakers to paint Tonya as an angel here but they don't at all. Growing up with her beast of a mother gave her a spiky outer shell and it's only when she feels that she has let herself down does her vulnerability show. It's a beautifully layered performance and in any other year she'd be showered with accolades for it. Sebastian Stan as Jeff Gilooly gets to stretch his legs too playing a part a million miles away from his Marvel outings. Plus he gets to rock a moustache that will actually make you shudder.

This has been compared to Goodfellas a lot lately and ya on the surface there are similarities, the punching soundtrack and the constant narration but it's very much it's own beast. A thematically packed beast at that. It's a look at the lifelong trauma that can be inflicted by toxic relationships, be they parent and child, husband and wife or just a bad friendship. It's also a look at the cult of celebrity and how that type of adoration can fill the hole in a damaged soul. It's a look at the damage classism can have on people when they are on the wrong side of it and finally it takes a shot at us, the viewer. How our hunger for nonstop news and scandal skews how we see people on screen. Real people. We forget how our consumption of news media effects the real people involved. How we always need to see someone as a baddie. The unreliable narrator is a plot device that's been used in film forever and is one that's always interesting. Here we have two unreliable narrators, Tonya herself and her husband Jeff, both contradicting each other constantly, often turning to the camera during a scene to tell us that their version of what's happening is the true one. Like rival news channels each wanting to come out on top.

Go see this if you can. It's challenging and uncomfortable viewing but it's excellent.