THIN ICE: a review of "I, Tonya"

"I, TONYA"
Screenplay Written by Steven Rogers
Directed by Craig Gillespie
**** (four stars)
RATED R

By the end of the cinematic year, the new releases arrive so fast and furiously that it is indeed impossible to keep up with their pace, especially as the window in which one is able to see them due to the increasingly brutality of the box office closes that much more rapidly. There is only so much time, and truth be told, the frequency does often make it difficult for this film enthusiast to keep those creative fireworks going at full capacity. In short, I just can't get to them all.

That being said, when I am able to catch up on some releases months later, every so often, I will run across a film whose excellence was so high that I end up kicking myself for not having seen it sooner in the movie theater. In the case of the biographical drama/satire "I, Tonya," directed with uncompromising verve, heft, skill, dynamic flair and freight train energy and confidence by Craig Gillespie, who previously helmed the comparatively sleepier and frankly, annoyingly quirkier "Lars And The Real Girl" (2007), I am indeed kicking myself!

Dear readers, Craig Gillespie's "I, Tonya" was not simply an unexpected surprise, it was filmmaking excellence to such a degree that if I had indeed seen the film during my end of the year rush, it would have made the creation of my personal Top Ten favorite films of 2017 list that much more difficult to compile. For whatever reasons, I guess I just had no desire to see a film adaptation of a  wild yet woefully pathetic media circus that I actually remember witnessing when it originally happened. But what Gillespie achieved with his film was remarkable and downright sensational, perhaps just as much as the real events themselves.

In a performance that feels tailor made to in crease her star wattage and acting credentials, Margot Robbie stars as the infamous Tonya Harding, whom we regard from her childhood ice skating beginnings circa 1978 Portland, Oregon to present day interview sequences and with the equally infamous 1994 attack upon skating rival Nancy Kerrigan and Harding's subsequent Olympics ice-skate shoe string meltdown as the centerpiece.

Told in a fractured narrative which ranges from documentary styled interview sections, more straightforward docudrama, blistering satire and cinematic flourishes like the often breaking of the fourth wall where the audience is addressed directly as well as the on screen events, which are commented upon in real time, we are given the voices of Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Shaw), Tonya Harding's abusive husband, Shawn Eckhardt (Paul Walter Hauser), Jeff's dimwitted best friend who bizarrely professes to being an expert in counter-terrorism, Diane Rawlinson (Julianne Nicholson), Tonya's skating coach, and finally, in true unrepentant volcanic fury, LaVona Golden (Allison Janney), Tonya's chain smoking, brutally vulgar, relentlessly abusive Mother. 

Craig Gillespie's "I, Tonya" is unquestionably the most visceral film I have seen in quite some time. Seemingly inspired by the speed and force as we have seen in iconic final third of Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas" (1990), Paul Thomas Anderson's "Boogie Nights" (1997) and Damien Chazelle's "Whiplash" (2014), Gillespie grabbed my attention instantly, kept me upon my toes from beginning to end and upended my perceptions persistently and brilliantly via the knife's edge Cinematography by Nicolas Karakatsanis, Editing by Tatiana S. Riegel and definitely, the pitch perfect soundtrack which culls select songs from the 1970's-1990's with such tremendously creative flair that fully accentuates Gillespie's storytelling and the themes of Tonya Harding's odyssey.

It seems more than fitting that "I, Tonya," with its collective of completely unreliable narrators, has fueled a story which merges and mashes the themes of the White working class, female empowerment and the cycle of abuse so thoroughly and disturbingly that it would be impossible to simply take one conceptual thread and stretch it out by its lonesome. The themes are irrevocably intertwined and fueled with an unforgiving viciousness that any potential attempts of a "when they go low, we go high" narrative, especially within any notions of feminism, are going to emerge bashed and bruised...much like several of the characters themselves.

Beyond its barrage of emotional and physical violence displayed throughout, Gillespie has also utilized the band of unreliable narrators, none of whom we ever fully trust or believe at any given moment or sequence as they all purposefully contradict each other, to create a blistering commentary upon America's "build-it-up-tear-it-down" culture, therefore making "I, Tonya" a perfect entry into the Court Of Public Opinion, as we are all left to devise for ourselves not only what may be valid, but who deserves our sympathy and/or vitriol. And to that end, the film also serves as a document within our so-called "post truth" era of Trump's America, where facts are non-existent and reality is based upon whatever one happens to be feeling or thinking within any given moment. As Tonya Harding exclaims near the film's end, "There's no such thing as 'truth'."

"I, Tonya" is a searing rush, a violently turbulent ride indeed and thankfully, Craig Gillespie has infused his film with considerable, yet dangerously teeth baring, humor, that never belies its characters or subject matter but indeed makes the film almost deliriously entertaining when it would otherwise be unbearable to view.

Margot Robbie is absolutely sensational in the title role. Now granted, I was skeptical about her as she is definitely an actress that is more than striking to regard, making me wonder if she was, frankly, too pretty for the role. And while she doesn't undergo as drastic and complete of a transformation as Charlize Theron underwent in her terrifying performance in Patty Jenkins' "Monster" (2003), Robbie hits a grand slam as she just nailed the essence and core of Harding's petulance, her sense of entitlement, her rage, her pride and self-righteous sense of self-pity, her complete inability to admit to any fault, and her ferocious determination to the one and only thing she was ever talented with.

While I can't say that I grew to have any more sympathy, so to speak, for the real world Tonya Harding, I was certainly given a front row seat to understanding her in a fashion that I never could have in the past. For all of the blood, fire, spit and fury in her performance, Margot Robbie perfectly depicted a figure who was indeed the product of her environment and was thus forced to engage with the outer world in the only way she knew due to the abuse launched at her from childhood through her marriage to Jeff. And I do have to say that her courtroom scene near the film's conclusion really affected me, for how would you feel if you were not allowed to engage in the only thing you were ever successful with? Margot Robbie, who certainly hung on for dear life in Martin Scorsese's "The Wolf Of Wall Street" (2013) and lived to tell the tale, has truly arrived in "I, Tonya." She is the real deal.

As terrific as Margot Robbie is, Allison Janney fully deserved her Oscar win as LaVona Golden. She delivered a mountainous, monstrous performance so unrepentantly vile that it would make Faye Dunaway from Frank Perry's "Mommie Dearest" (1981) run away and cower in the corner. The mastery of Janney's performance not only lies in the fact that she is wickedly hilarious in the role while never subjugating her wretchedness, her self-loathing and her unspeakably horrific parenting. Janney's mastery is somehow still providing LaVona with a sense of mystery, a hidden quality of her full motivations that undoubtedly makes her an enigma.

Why is LaVona so determined to ensure that Tonya becomes a professional ice skater in the first place? The film never seeks to even begin to answer this question, which only adds to the film's overall mystery. Might it be a quest for vicarious fame? Redemption for her awful parenting? Hoped for transcendence from her specific station in life? A chance to at last be the star in her own life story? Whether all or none of the above, whatever churns through LaVona's wires and is seemingly exhumed through every cigarette laced breath, like a forever simmering dragon just waiting to explode into flames of destruction, Allison Janney is compulsively watchable.

Craig Gillespie's "I, Tonya" is masterful and malevolent. Written, filmed and acted within an inch of its, the effect is absolutely exhilarating and inits own way thrusts a vehemently enraged middle finger proudly in the face of all of the prestige pictures that were released at the same time. And perhaps, that is exactly what we all need sometimes. A film to wake us up, slap us around and not be terribly concerned with pedigree, while scaling the heights of cinema in the process. A film that is ready and unafraid to roll around in the dirt or take that body slam face first onto the ice.

Perhaps that possibly explains why as a culture we were so engaged with the original controversy and the infamous figure of Tonya Harding in the first place.