I never expected to be impressed by a film about Tonya Harding. When I first watched this, I was pretty dazzled by the storytelling, the performances, the editing, effects and soundtrack. While it’s not what I would think of as rewatchable, I’ve seen the film a half-dozen times. Something that becomes very clear is that while there’s an overall jokiness to the film because of conflicting accounts, the portrait of domestic abuse is thoughtfully-handled. Nobody is excused and nobody is given full sympathy for their situation. It’s credibly presented how Harding was abused by her mom and carried that into her relationship with Jeff Gillooly whose own youth and upbringing makes him weak and quick to lash out. The characters are not judged, they are allowed to be true.
I expected Margot Robbie and Allison Janney would help the film play so smooth. Robbie’s chops as a dramatic actress finally got the right complicated character to bury herself in. The seamlessness of the skating sequences only enhance Robbie’s work because her best moments tend to be right before or after a routine. She never lets you doubt that it’s her doing all the hard work, on and off the ice. While Allison Janney goes big, that’s who she’s playing too. You see someone who only understands the world through how you can manipulate it to suit you, and who sees everyone else’s goals as obstacles to knock down. Between the lines Janney’s mom believes she loves her daughter and doesn’t receive the credit she deserves.
Everyone else, I didn’t know at the time they had it in them. Sebastian Stan is turning into the best actor to come from the MCU machinery. This was the start of Paul Walter Hauser becoming one of my favorite “that guy”s, and Craig Gillespie found his own female-forward needle drop groove that’s served him well in Cruella and Pam & Tommy. There’s a skating sequence that combines Robbie, a digital double, slick but clear edits and four needle drops in a matter of seconds. Sounds terrible, but it’s exactly the opposite.
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