I, Tonya

With wit, frankness and in your face, fuck-you-if-you-don’t-like-it, style, “I, Tonya” soars like one of 
Harding’s signature triple axels. Margot Robbie slides into this role so deeply you can somehow forget 
the stunning beauty she is and concentrate on the amazing actor she has become.

This isn’t to dismiss her work in Wolf of Wall Street, Focus or Suicide Squad, but none of those roles 
gave her the opportunity or space to show the tremendous depth in character she does in this film.

Right out of the gate, the film tells you it’s irony free, and based on wildly contradictory and yet totally 
true interviews. This brings up a great theme that plays throughout and is very timely for a subject that 
happened over 20 years ago: What is a fact? And how does media portrayal of a thing (and the 
amount of it) change that fact?

Since this story broke in the early 1990’s, right as the 24 hour news cycle was ramping up and the 
tabloids were slowly transitioning to mainstream, the way the story was covered most definitely 
changed the reality of what was going on.

The actors challenge we, the audience, crashing through the fourth wall, at every turn to figure out 
what’s actually going on. Which one of these characters will you believe as they hurtle explosive 
accusation, one after the other, upon each other?  

One of the great lines from Martin Maddox (played by Bobby Cannavale), as a composite Hard 
Copy Producer who serves as a backbone of journalistic truth about the way the story unfolded, 
was how the networks used to look down at shows like Hard Copy - the television version of the 
National Enquirer - until they became them. When I studied Journalism at San Diego State in the 
early 90’s, I distinctly remember teachers telling us if we ever worked for shows like Hard Copy or 
A Current Affair we would have to remove our degree from our resume.

Robbie consistently portrays Harding as a woman who won’t take responsibility for her actions. 
She blatantly says “that wasn’t my fault” numerous times throughout the film. Her mom (played 
brilliantly by Allison Janney, because, well, she’s Allison freaking Janney) adds to the point, accusing 
her of never taking responsibility, all the while dodging responsibility for her own brutally abusive actions.

What I, Tonya does, rather incredibly, and similar to American Crime Story’s OJ Simpson series, is 
allow you to feel something for Harding other than contempt or disgust, the two most accessible 
emotions based both on what she did and how she was portrayed. Seeing what she grew up with, 
the people she was surrounded with, the choices she made and the patterns she followed, helps 
show a more complete version of a person, rather than a slice of life turned into a punchline. Whether 
her reduction to that role is fair or not is left for you to decide.

The other thing that is brilliant about I, Tonya is the way Robbie skates. It is beautifully shot and 
performed. This would have been an obvious thing to fake or to use camera tricks to shoot around, 
but Robbie and Director, Craig Gillespie, don’t blink and, thankfully, don’t allow us to either (Note: 
 there is significant CGI in the film used to place Robbie’s face on a professional skater’s body). Why 
seeing the athletic performance in terms of Harding’s power and ability matters so much is that with 
all the drama, it’s easy to forget how great of a skater Harding was. She is the first woman to execute 
a pair triple Axels in a competition, and the first to pull off a triple Axel in combination with a double 
toe loop. These moves were revolutionary at the time and had she accomplished them under different 
circumstances, she would have gotten her wish to be on the front of a Wheaties box and much more. 
Instead...she is the Olympic skater associated with assaulting Nancy Kerrigan.

Whatever Tonya did or didn’t do, I, Tonya, is a great reminder that there is nuance to a story that is often 
lost in a rush to judgment - particularly in a living, breathing, beastly media culture that devours the worst 
of humanity with astonishing speed and appetite.

*Notes and references:

Article 1

From screenwriter Steven Rogers: "The thing that bothered me is that [Harding was treated] 
like a punchline by the media," says Rogers. "It was the first time [the media] cared less 
about being accurate than about filling the space, which is now an epidemic."

Article 2

Why Margot chose to do it.