I, Tonya (2017)

I used to do this segment on my other blog called Based On A Truesday story where we explored films that were based on a true story. While it has been a long time since we did it and today is Tuesday after all I thought I would bring it back. The film I chose for today is one that was a huge topic in the 1990's because it was one of the most shocking events to happen in the world of figure skating and I am talking about I, Tonya which was released in 2017 and was directed by Craig Gillespie (Lars And The Real Girl). The film stars Margot Robbie (Once Upon A Time In Hollywood) as the controversial Tayna Harding. The film follows Tanya's life from it's humble backwards beginnings all the way to the events that occurred when Nancy Kerrigan was attacked. The film also stars Sebastian Stan (Captain America: Winter Soldier) as Jeff, Allison Janney (The Addams Family) as LaVona, Julianne Nicholson (August: Osage County) as Diane Rawlinson, Paul Walter Hauser (Richard Jewell) as Shawn, Bobby Cannavale (The Irishman) as Martin Maddox,  Bojana Novakovic (Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) as Dody Teachman, Caitlin Carver (Dear White People) as Nancy Kerrigan, and Jason Davis (Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby) as Al.

This was actually an interesting story about one of the most controversial figures who dealt with very stupid people right from the beginning. There was a lot of pressure on her right from the beginning because she was an unconventional skater put on by her mother. She gets married to basically a guy who was a moron that abused her, and an idiot who thought he was security guard hatched the plan to whack Nancy Kerrigan. The thing that I loved the most about the film is the fact that is says it based off of accounts given by Tanya and Jeff, but they are also telling you to take what they say with a degree of maybe you shouldn't believe everything that they say because how reliable can they really be? Margot Robbie does an amazing job in the film that you could almost take this as Harley Quinn's origin story, but she really does knock it out of the park as the polarizing Tonya Harding. Sebastian Stan also deserves some credit for the job well done that he did, but the real star of the film in my opinion was Allison Janney who played Tony'a unrelenting and unforgiving mother who was the definition of tough as nails. She dominated the screen every time that she appeared on it and she carried the film through in my opinion. I would be interested to know however how much of the story is true because one is always going to paint themselves as innocent bystanders, but the truth is that the deed was done. I am going to give the film an B+ for a final grade.