First Take: I, Tonya- what a load of Bolero

SYNOPSIS: Competitive ice skater Tonya Harding rises amongst the ranks at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, but her future in the activity is thrown into doubt when her ex-husband intervenes.

Screen Unseen can be a beautiful thing sometimes, especially if you work as a film critic who can’t get access to media screenings. Much like last month’s review of The Shape of Water, seeing this on 10 minutes notice is a difficult thing to master, especially with a film with the hype that this film has attained. Unfortunately, I, Tonya isn’t quite perfect, with a few issues within its overall style and direction that ultimately makes it lack something big.

Craig Gillespie isn’t to blame for this, he does the best he can in terms of delivering a coherently paced film (which at 1 hour 59 minutes still feels a little too long), and working to a decent script from Steven Rogers that not only tells the story of the Harding/Kerrigan incident well but adds humour to the mix, some bits of the film just work and others drag on for longer that they should- but it is done in a super unique way, taking the documentary style and adding some divisive breaks of the 4th wall to the mix. It’s shot well by

Nicolas Karakatsanis, and the combination of Peter Nashel’s score and an absolute corker of a soundtrack does make the film worth watching, but the subtle flaws in its execution do make it suffer.

The performances however are where the film truly excels. Margot Robbie has quite rightly got a lot of awards attention for her work as Tonya Harding in this film, especially with the amount of emotion needed for a role like this, but surprisingly, she’s overshadowed by Allison Janney, who is arguably one of the film’s most memorable characters, and paired with some great supporting work from Sebastian Stan and Bobby Cannavale, the film has some great talent, but the technical aspects (including the obvious CG during the skating sequences) let the film down, and it’s a shame as this awards season is shaping up to be super competitive.

THE VERDICT

I, Tonya will be the film that fails to make waves with Oscar voters- while the performances are good, and the script has potential, the rapid pursuit of the mockumentary style really tested a packed house (who were arguably wanting to see Lady Bird). Either way, it’s worth a watch when it goes on wide release in a few weeks.

RATING: 4.5/5