I, Tonya

 I absolutely LOVED this movie. Although it was a surprise rated R film, I, Tonya changed the way I look at the world of figure skating. I, Tonya is a true story about the life of Tonya Harding. She goes through many hardships and abusive relationships (depending on who you ask) from her mother and her ex-husband. The movie consists of a series of interviews with those who were involved in her scandal with Nancy Kerrigan her greatest rival and her hard work to get to compete in the Olympics team. The incident involved an assailant that bashed her knee in 2 days before the Olympic tryouts, later on it was found that Tonya's ex-husband actually hired the assailant. The biggest sports scandal in US history, shook the country so hard because Tonya Harding was the first US woman to land a triple axel in competition, but never got the wins she deserved because she never fit the "classical American woman" stereotypes judges were looking for. So no matter how much sacrifices she made, no matter how much blood, sweat, and tears she contributed on the ice, she was always placed behind Nancy Kerrigan. Unlike her, Kerrigan stemmed from a well off easy going family, while Tonya came from a small town with divorced parents, an abusive mother, and was the classic loud-mouthed red neck. 

This isn't to say that Tonya Harding was in the right. Tonya is the kind of person where you either love her or you hate her. Just like her mother, she is hard-headed and a narcissist. She always believes that when things don't go her way, its "not fair", as seen in her meltdown in the 1994 Olympics--- where she flopped her jump then proceeded to stop skating and skate up to the judges, prop her leg up, cry out about her broken lace, and demand a retry. She also admits she did know about Kerrigan's situation from the get-go, stating, "it was only supposed to be a couple death threats. Never a bashed knee".

Margot Robbie did such a great job at playing Tonya, I was honestly surprised she didn't receive an award for it. But, I am very glad that Allison Janney, who played Tonya's mother, received as many awards as she did. Her performance was SO good. The viewer is supposed to feel this complete and utter frustration from her mother, and see her as absolutely insufferable, and Janney plays it extremely well. I love this movie so much, you would think that with the lack of clear objective, and with how many differing opinions there are would make the movie confusing, but Craig Gillespie balances everything so well it feels as if your in some kind of investigation. Watching this movie, I feel like I can write an argumentative essay on it. There are so may differing objectives, so many different opinions, that could you could take a stance on. Did Tonya deserve to get banned from the figure skating association? Were the fines imposed something from a bias? Would Nancy Kerrigan get the same fines? I would have to say this movie makes my top 10, it is one of my favorites. I give it a 9.8/10.