I, Tonya

This movie is half a documentary and half a movie. This makes it a good thing because if it were entirely a documentary I would not have watched it.

Margot Robbie stars as Tonya Harding who, if any of you remember was a figure skater, a very good one but one who never got the scores that she deserved. Tonya Harding was the first woman to land a triple in a competition and that should have earned her great fame but it didn't because she was disliked by the American judges and there was a lot of controversy over her landing a place at the Olympics.

I didn't know the story because I don't even remember Torvile and Dean winning their gold medals at that Olympics so I have no chance of knowing anything about this woman. She was correct, she didn't get the scores that she deserved because her skating was fantastic and her presentation was also exceptionally good. She just came from a family where her mother was crazy and just insulted her, told her that she was no good and threw knives at her. Her father left when she was a child and her mother had to raise her whilst working, which is always difficult.

To work out the actual events of this story is fairly hard because what they say in the documentary and what they say in the acted parts of the movie are totally different and contradict each other; meaning that you came out of the movie still a little confused as to what was the actual truth and what was made up. In the end, her husband was an idiot who tried to scare off other competitors with a well thought out plan and let it be executed by a total idiot. Tonya knew about it, didn't stop the plot to send death threats but didn't actually get involved in any of it and she was given a lifetime ban from skating which was stupid and unfair because the others received minor prison sentences for their part in the attack on another world class skater and yet she had her life ruined for not actually being involved in anything.


For me that was the worst part, the unfair system and a life that was ruined by an idiot. In the movie he is made out to abuse her and his friend was a total idiot. She was a victim her entire life and got treated like rubbish for it.

The soundtrack was fantastic. Fleetwood Mac and some other old school rock songs just summed up why she wasn't liked. It should have been okay to be different and the country should have been embracing it but they weren't and they didn't. She worked hard to get to her level and she deserved more than what she got. I learnt from this movie but I can fully see why it wasn't really pushing for any awards. I felt like Alison Janey was playing a similar character to one that I have become accustomed to seeing her take on and for me that was why I wasn't convinced that she was the outright winner of the award for best female actor in a supporting role. The movie is good enough but not a movie that I will add to my collection.