You might know a little about the Tonya Harding story. At least the bit where Harding is involved in her ice-skating rival Nancy Kerrigan getting her leg bashed in at the 1994 US Olympic trials. In this country, the scandal came and went. In America, Harding’s name became a nationwide byword for redneck brainlessness and dumb aggression.
“Folks said there’s no way Obama has a chance unless he goes and kneecaps the person ahead of us, does a Tonya Harding,” said Barack Obama no less. In 2007. Thirteen years on and Harding was still a laughing stock.
Of course, nothing’s ever that simple, is it? What new film I, Tonya attempts to do is at least look beyond the headlines and understand how this completely bonkers story came to pass, through the occasionally blackened eyes and crimp-permed hair of Harding herself (played by Margot Robbie).
Told straight, this tale of poverty, domestic violence, class snobbery, stupidity and smashed dreams might have only made the Hallmark Channel. Instead, writer Steven Rogers and director Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl) — with a sweary script, Scorsese-esque soundtrack, faux-documentary interviews and occasional fourth-wall-breaking dialogue — have played it for dark laughs.
Some have said this decision is patronising to Harding, others that it lionises the perpetrator not the victim (Kerrigan barely features). Both criticisms seem one-eyed. It’s true the violence and one-liners often come side-by-side in a way that can make for uneasy viewing but its genre-defying style doesn’t limit our empathy, and in some ways makes the dark moments pack even more punch.
The two hours fly by like a sequinned dress in the midst of a triple axel and it’s hard not to feel completely transported to this world of practice rinks and bad moustaches. There is also much pleasure to be had from the wider cast of stranger-than-fiction ne’er-do-wells, in which Allison Janney and Sebastian Stan as Harding’s mother and husband stand out.
Of course, this pseudo “feel-good” movie definitely doesn’t have an ending to match. Late on, Robbie’s Harding looks into the camera and accuses us all of being complicit in her cartoonish treatment by laughing along. It’s a meta statement in a complex story that asks as many questions as it answers.
I, Tonya is out on 23 February
