I, Tonya

Everyone always talks about how weird the 80’s were but I think that’s only because we were so full of anger and angst during the 90’s that when bizarre stuff actually went down during that decade, we chose to immediately condemn it rather than simply appreciating it for its beauty. For instance, I was one of the few who actually appreciated the awful but awesome RnB group, Color Me Badd! And yes, that’s Badd with two D’s because their music had that much of an effect on the ladies; if you know what I mean. This group had everything you could ever want in a young professionals boy band, including amazing song titles like I Wanna Sex You Up and I Adore, Me Amore. They also represented the very best of America at the time. They had the Black guy with dreads who looked like a bigger version of Chappelle’s Jamaican stoner in Half Baked, "I’m from the beach, booooooy!" They had the Don Johnson look-a-like with the permanent 5 o’clock shadow, a wannabe reject from the hip hop group 3 ^{rd Base, and of course a pasty white guy who rocked a ponytail and a pirate shirt.}

Now while most people hated on the dude with the pirate shirt, I had to give him mad props. Do you know the kind of balls it takes to rock a ponytail AND a pirate shirt?!?! I’ve only seen one other man come close to such greatness and that was when MC Hammer rocked the greasy Jeri Curl mullet and Hammer pants; his personal ode to Patrick Swayze when he paired the OG mullet with tight sweat pants in Roadhouse.

Well the point of all of this is that we didn’t truly appreciate all that Tonya Harding brought to our lives when her idiot associates decided to break Nancy Kerrigan’s knee just outside the skating rink on that unbelievable day. Their hope was that this would give Tonya a free path to competing in the Olympics in the event’s most watched sport at the time. I know that it’s hard to believe now but everyone loved figure skating at the time; watching young women skating to the sound of symphonies while dressed up in half bathing suits/half formal dresses was the highlight of your winter. It was a sport for high society and only people of a certain ilk were allowed to be a part of it on this level. And this is why everyone was in awe when Harding and her bat shit crazy family tried to literally bully their way in. It was like the white trash version of Goodfellas but on ice! But once the video of Kerrigan was on the television of every household in America, it was a wrap for poor Harding; she was instantly hated by everyone and at the same time became the butt of every comedian’s jokes.

Well in I, Tonya, director Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl) tells the side of Harding’s story that no one ever cared to listen to back in the day. He shows you how her crazy mother (played by Allison Janney) almost turned her love for skating into a nightmare by pushing her too hard and practically sabotaging every relationship she tried to form, including her relationship with her coach and her first ever boyfriend, a boy who eventually became her husband.

You also see how she fought to overcome her socioeconomic status to even be considered on the same level of skaters who weren’t nearly as talented as her but fit the overall profile that American judges were looking for at the time. It was a little heartbreaking really because all she ever wanted to do was skate and feel some sense of normalcy but that’s hard to do when your father had you hunting for rabbits so you could make your own fur coat or when your mother’s best friend is a parakeet that literally lived on her shoulder like she was the female version of Popeye.

Gillespie does an amazing job of capturing just how odd, tragically funny, and surreal this whole ordeal was. And I’m talking about everything that happened in her life before the incident. Things went up another notch after the knee breaking episode. The fact that she was still allowed to compete, that she missed the Opening ceremonies, her laces broke while trying to compete, and that her bodyguard went on national television and claimed to be an international spy makes it seem as if this was nothing more than some dark Saturday Night Live skit on a random weekend. But sadly all of this actually happened and reliving it made me feel like an idiot for not truly appreciating what I was living through at the time. However I must admit that I also felt like a sheep for falling in line with the rest of the world and instantly hating Harding mainly because I was told to do so. Now I’m not saying that this film will make you become a Harding apologist but I am saying that it will at least make you hear the other side for a change; something I think this country is in dire need of at the moment.

Margot Robbie is a bona fide star and her performance alone makes this film worth watching. I give I, Tonya a rating of VERY FRESH!