2 hrs, color, 2017
“Everyone has their own
truth.” Such is the declaration of the
accomplished figure skater Tonya Harding (Margot Robbie) as she ponders all
that she has lost in the way of prestige and respect after getting caught in
the scandal that ruined her professionally. We are somewhere in the middle of
the 1990s, after the worst has happened.
She is talking to a nameless camera operator but her words are meant for
the millions of us who are giving heed to this very thorough bio-drama that
tracks her life from age 4 to age 23, when the axe fell on her. This flimsy self-defense before the camera
will not satisfy those like myself, who regard her as a glory-seeking athlete
in her younger days who never learned what true self-respect requires of a
headliner. The film asks for some of the
audience’s sympathy while not soft soaping her own contribution to the infamous
incident that became international news.
How many of us remember the
incident? In 1994 some misguided friends
of hers, most notably her husband Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan), thought they
would take matters into their own hands to insure that champion skater Nancy
Kerrigan would not be an obstacle to Tonya’s winning top honors in the 1994
Olympic trials. They arranged for a paid
hit man to attack Kerrigan, smashing her knees and disabling her from
participation. The subsequent
investigation led through various phases until Harding herself was finally
implicated. Not that she planned the
attack or approved of it but that she knew her husband was up to something
nefarious and was very slow in reporting the same to the FBI.
Hats off to the screen
writers who took full cognizance of Tonya’s poor, redneck background and her
bitter childhood under the supervision of an extremely abusive mother (Allison
Janney)! Janney very much deserves the
Oscar for Supporting Actress that she won for the performance. She is a study
in and of herself. We have all been
exposed to images of the fanatical stage mother, of which Ethel Merman’s
character in “Gypsy” is an unforgettable example. But this mother is something far beyond
anything that even begins to feel like a cliché. She is mean and nasty and believes that the
way to “love” is through intimidation and cutting the ground out from under her
daughter. Nothing Tonya can do is able
to elicit any kind or degree of praise or encouragement or positive reaction
from the woman. “You skate like a
graceless bull dyke.” Can you imagine a
more deflating remark a mother could make to a young woman under her tutelage? And the remark follows some performing we the
audience see that to any ordinary eye looks to be quite smooth and
professional. Nothing Tonya ever does is
good enough for this harridan. How does
anyone get it into the head that you build up by tearing down? But skating on the ice is all from an early
age that the girl has known, something that at least brings her public notice
and acclaim, so she keeps on with it.
The mother even pays a young man to heckle her daughter before she
descends upon the ice; fortunately that is the moment when she becomes the
first skater ever to achieve a triple axel.
We are left wondering whether or not the mother was hoping to incite her
to this success by the bribery.
Sebastian Stan is magnificent
too as the husband who over time also becomes abusive, though he starts off
seemingly quite admiring of her and her appearance. But one frustration leads to another and the
marriage starts to implode. What at
first is admiration somehow segues into a need to control, hence the claim that
his felonious behavior is a way of “protecting” her. At one very insightful point Tonya admits
that receiving abuse is the only way she has ever elicited love or anything
like it, so why not marry an abuser? It
is a quite well tread tale, in numerous films, but the stars are so good and
the writing so superb that they make an old story feel remarkably new.
Though I have reservations
about Tonya’s motivations and her sense of personal propriety, I have to admit
that the scene in the courtroom when sentence is pronounced barring her for
life from any further participation in professional skating, among other
penalties – fines, community service, etc. – is quite distressing and
heartbreaking to watch. Her initial
sentence is eighteen months in prison, with these other things offered as an
alternative on suspension of the sentence. She pleads that the major penalty of
prison be imposed and that later she be allowed to continue on with her skating
career. She asks to be jailed; she is
willing to endure that and she makes the plea backed up by thousands who still
believe in her and want to see her continue.
She is faced with a tremendous void without skating, the one thing that
has given her ragged life meaning and purpose.
Robbie in tears and simulated shock makes the moment truly
penetrating. Frankly I thought it was a
fair offer. After all, she is not a
second rate performer; she has accomplished great feats in the ring. But the judge refuses.
Once again I have to take
issue in a matter of movie classification.
It seems that in recent years it has gotten easier for one to be
designated a comedy. A Google biography
of Harding calls “I, Tonya” a black comedy.
But if this is black humor, then so is the legend of Joseph
McCarthy. We cannot seize upon scattered
laughs in the course of the footage or in the words of a rabble rouser and call
the whole production an entertainment built upon the absurd. The absurd does
not comprise the basis for the screenplay of “I, Tonya”. I had the same reaction
to the release of “Get Out”, also designated a comedy, which I recently
reviewed. I considered it and still do a
horror picture; it takes us on a walk through a nasty series of surreal
encounters in which life and possible death are juggled. It takes us far beyond what we could call the
anticipation of bizarre captivity. It
throws the hero into the grip of sinister forces bent upon his total corruption
and destruction. What is to laugh at in that predicament? In “I, Tonya” the things that happen are
based upon fact and deal in factual developments. The characters are disturbingly
plausible. A serious issue of justice
and morality is treated in deeply dramatic terms. For me this biopic is drama.
Since it is unlikely that we will ever see a sequel to
it, it seems fitting for me
to fill you folks in on some
of what has transpired in Harding’s life since that sentence was handed down to
her. For one thing she has divorced
Jeff, with whom she no longer keeps company.
The same is true of her and her still living mother, and she has
remarried twice since. Interestingly enough she has not given up on
skating. She still performs for select
audiences and has expressed the desire to have her own skating TV show for a
nationwide airing. Now at age 47 she is
still capable of doing a triple axel and remains the only skater who has ever
achieved it. Actually the first “sport”
in which she took part after her dismissal was women’s boxing, securing a few
unremarkable victories and suffering a few just as unremarkable defeats. I am pleased to say that she did not stay in
that arena for very long.
She won herself a place in
the cast of Dancing with the Stars, where she has thrived so much better. She has made many TV guest star
appearances. And she claims she has
found at last the happiness that eluded her before. Her second marriage lasted only a year, but
her third one has been a seeming success; by it she became the proud mother of
a son in February 2011. Whether any
further offspring has emerged over these past seven years, I cannot say for
lack of up-to-date information.
I think it is safe enough to
assume that Harding has managed, since her great loss, to maintain
respectability and we can only hope a measure of transformation as well. At least we have heard no reports or rumors
about alcohol or drug addiction. She has
not thus far landed in any ditch.
To read other entries in my
blog, please consult its website:
enspiritus.blogspot.coTo know
about me, consult the autobiographical entry on the website for Dec. 5, 2016.
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