Biographical films are very often resurrected at the time of nominations for film awards, almost as a safe formula for a nomination because it is especially demanding to portray someone who is known to the public and requires special methodology from the actors.
Such films are often two-legged swords, regularly flirting with cartoon and grotesque, or too much drama.
And, I, Tonya, as its object of observation, takes Tonya Harding, an American skater who, apart from her talent, has also been remembered for her explosive character.
Craig Gillespie and his screenwriter Steven Rogers took the incredible life of Tony Harding, who in itself already appears to be film and decided to get the best out of him. Whether the film shows the truth about her life here seems to be less important.
LaVona Golden (Allison Janey) very determinedly brought her daughter to the ice rink, claiming that her baby was extremely talented and despite her opponents, she managed to convince the stubborn trainer. The girl grew up in a well-known and extremely capable skater, Tony Harding (Margot Robbie), but her path was never easy at any moment, starting with an incredibly selfish and cruel mother, through hypocritical judges and a violent husband to a rolling American audience everyone was ready to put obstacles on the way to the stars.
Since all of them have already been acquainted with her story, almost every one of those parties in the film succeeds in making five minutes of explaining what they have said and to whom, how they responded, and why exactly an incident occurred.
I, Tonya is not a classic biographical film, which is clear from the first minute when the main characters is preparing for the tough interviews in which they will reconstruct the story of life by Tony Harding. Each of these characters is vivid and can offer distinctive spice to the food that is cooked for the viewer in front of their eyes. Unreliable storytellers, often demolishing the fourth wall and turning the viewer to change the course of the story can give the impression that this is a film with elements of metaphysics . And, Tonya can actually be seen as a pseudo-documentary film, that is, a feature film presented as a documentary, although it doesn't deal with pure fiction, but deals with a real person with real life, and certainly it's a black comedy.
Although there is a real and true story at his center, the film is not trying to show objective truth worthy of a documentary, it takes very subjective and often opposite and paradoxical version of the events narrated in the heat of the moment, with much justification, and attempts to convince the viewers in version, whose creation at that moment is testifying.
Margot Robbie did not have any easy task getting the role of the title character about whom opinions and constructed truths were already formed. It's very easy to go into cartoons in biographical films, especially when they are humorous, which, of course, is Tonya, but Robbie is skeptical of it. Her Tonya is cruel, brutal and harsh, but she is also human - Robbie made sure that we see her broken, emotional and fragile side.
I, Tonya may not be without error, but succeeds on several levels. First of all, it's an extremely entertaining humorous movie with no headaches, and it has enough drama and bizarre to keep the attention of the viewer. The camera work is dedicated to the shooting of art skating competition, with particularly impressive slowdowns of Tonya's hard-to-beat jumps. Also I, Tonya, apart from the biographical nature, can become an essay about the position of women in society, class differences, dysfunctional families and violence of that subjectivity and relativity of truth, all over the back of a woman with great dreams and a restraining environment.
This was my translation from Ziher hr article ''I, Tonya : IzmeΔu Ironije i Agonije''