I, Tonya (Margot Robbie - Tonya Harding Bio)

Addle

I think Margot deserves some sort of award for her performance. She was great. Better than Frances McDormond I thought.
I still rate I Tonya better than 3 billboards or ladybird.

[Deleted User]

A decent if not all that great bio pic in which strong performances are kind of wasted on a nothing script that thinks it's smarter and funnier than it is. It's a decent time killer and has a couple of laughs but it's overlong and glosses over quite a bit. Robbie is great and for the first time shows that she's a player but as a film, it's overlong and feels like an imitation of the likes of David O' Russell.

HandsomeBob

Have to say I loved it and Robbie was outstanding. Of those nominated last night it was definitely my favourite performance.

Not really familiar with the incident so I don't know how accurate her sentence in the film was, but if it's accurate then that was pretty shocking.

Struck me as a judge making a name for himself at the expense of someone who was frequently sh1t upon from all sides.

_Dara_

I really enjoyed this. I normally don't like biopics but this was a really good one. I like that it wasn't afraid to show her flaws eg. making excuses all the time.

There was just one thing I felt the film was missing: Tonya Harding came fourth and eighth in the field at the Olympics. This means she was in the upper echelons of the elite of figure skaters. To get to that point takes unbelievable amounts of focus and discipline. The film never really got down to showing or explaining how she was to do that, considering her personal life and the obstacles in her way. They showed her going to practice but I actually would have found it interesting to know her process for being able to focus and exclude all the shit that was happening in her life.

metaoblivia

_Dara_ wrote: »

I really enjoyed this. I normally don't like biopics but this was a really good one. I like that it wasn't afraid to show her flaws eg. making excuses all the time.

There was just one thing I felt the film was missing: Tonya Harding came fourth and eighth in the field at the Olympics. This means she was in the upper echelons of the elite of figure skaters. To get to that point takes unbelievable amounts of focus and discipline. The film never really got down to showing or explaining how she was to do that, considering her personal life and the obstacles in her way. They showed her going to practice but I actually would have found it interesting to know her process for being able to focus and exclude all the shit that was happening in her life.

She was never really able to focus in competition. I think skating practice was first an escape from her mother and then an escape from her first husband. And it was something she was really, really good at and that she loved doing. Tonya Harding had huge amounts of natural talent. It's really hard to overstate that. No one could skate with her speed or power. No one in that era could jump like her, except for Midori Ito.

But she never really skated to her potential, except in 1991, which was the most stable year of her life. That year, she won US Nationals, beating Kristie Yamaguchi, the eventual 1992 Olympic champion, and Nancy Kerrigan. She also finished 2nd at the world championships. Her marriage was young and still happy and she'd finally escaped her mother.

But after 1991, her marriage became bad, she lost her focus and was never able to put up the performances she was capable of. 4th and 8th place were not triumphs for her - they were poor skates that lacked focus.

I think in this way, the film relied perhaps too heavily on the audience to know about the figure skating world at the time. For me, 8th place at the Olympics in anything would be a miracle. For Tonya Harding, it was a huge disappointment.

They also screwed up the sentencing. The same judge didn't sentence her to community service/probation and ban her from skating. The community service/probation came from her criminal trial where she made a plea deal, and part of that was withdrawing from the 1994 worlds and resigning from USFSA. She agreed to that, so there was no dramatic breakdown there.

A few months later, USFSA conducted their own investigation, determined that Tonya knew about the attack on Nancy Kerrigan prior to it happening and did nothing to stop it, and then handed her a lifetime ban from USFSA events, ending her amateur career or any hope of her coaching at a high level. She was not banned from professional skating events (which became very lucrative following the attack on Nancy Kerrigan), but she was effectively blacklisted from those because most of the skating community refused to work with her.

_Dara_

But even so, if you’re finishing in the top ten in the world, you’re going to be putting in a lot of training. I don’t believe she didn’t really focus if she was breaking the top ten.

crushproof

Just watched last night. Robbies performance was absolutely top notch, and in my opinion better than McDormand in Three Billboards. Both actors played absolute blinders but Robbie really blew me away with her performance.

An incredible, horrific tale of wasted talent that I had only heard about in bits and pieces before. A solid 8/10

restive

Brilliant, see it!

eviltimeban

Bit late to the party on this one, saw it last night and loved it. Not a bad moment in it, Scorcese nods for sure. In fact the only loose part was the timeframe around the Kerrigan "incident" - it wasn't overtly said that she didn't actually have her knee broken.

I would say, look up real footage of Tonya Harding - it's amazing. The footage where she actually completes the triple axel is astounding - she spins so fast you she's like a Tasmanian devil blur. It's quite emotional to see. Also the real footage of Kerrigan's attack, RIGHT AFTER IT HAPPENED, is something else. It does allude to her "attitude" afterwards. I also would've liked to have seen a nod to their "face to face" joint interview that took place in 1998 - the real thing makes for very uncomfortable viewing.

Robbie was amazing, as were the supporting cast. Music was good, loved the use of ZZ Top, but I think "The Chain" by Fleetwood Mac has been overused in recent years.

JP Liz V1

Looks to be on RTE 1 tomorrow night

fryup

watched it the other night

pleasantly surprised, excellent movie - great acting all round, the ice dancing sequences were amazing and a killer soundtrack

*just wonder did she really have no prior knowledge of the attack?