I, Tonya: "Those bitches didn't even know what hit'em."
22.2.2018
Translation: machine translated
The ice witch is coming to the cinema: a crazy true story and a lot of black humour tell how Tonya Harding became the most hated person of the last twenty years.
They couldn't have been more different.
Shortly before the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, when the competition between the two athletes came to a head, Kerrigan was attacked. She is hit in the knee with an iron bar. The perpetrator? Unknown. But Tonya Harding goes down as the villain of the biggest scandal in figure skating history, and the myth of the "Ice Witch" is born.
Back to the beginning, where the evil came from
The filmmakers certainly didn't choose an easy task. After all, the audience is expected to sympathise with the ice witch at least to some extent. Director Craig Gillespie and screenwriter Steve Rogers achieve this by going back to the very beginning.
So "I, Tonya" is not the story of two rivals who fight each other to the bitter end. Rather, it is the story of little Tonya, who is drilled from childhood and brutally abused by her mother LaVona Harding (Allison Janney).
"You'll go on wet then," scolds LaVona when Tonya, just four years old, runs urine down her tights during training because her mother won't let her go to the toilet. She punishes unsuccessful free skating with hard blows. And when Tonya tries to make friends with other girls, her mum intervenes immediately: "Tonya, what are you doing? She's your enemy."
When Harding meets her first boyfriend and later husband Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan) at the age of fifteen, life finally seems to grant her some happiness. A fallacy. The constant beatings from her husband - who is every bit as violent as her mother - poison her just as much as the corrosive smoke from LaVona's cigarettes.
The one, all-poisoning feeling
A statement that hits the mark emotionally.
Because Harding has known nothing but bullying, drill and violence in her life. Even before "the incident", she was the dregs of the scene, who people hated to watch win.
And Harding learnt early on that the world is out to get her. Every single damn day.
The triple Axel
She may not be a natural, but thanks to her muscular physique, she masters her craft perfectly. The fact that she is the first American woman to perform the triple Axel under competitive conditions only serves to reinforce her feeling. A jump so incredibly difficult that only six other women have managed it to date.
And yet Harding never received the recognition she deserved. Starting with the swearing and beating mother, the abusive and no less violent husband and the judges at the edge of the rink.
The latter refuse to recognise her talent because she doesn't fit the image of the American ice princess. Her expressions are too boorish, the make-up she puts on herself too colourful. And the costumes, which Harding sews herself for lack of money, are too glittery. Tonya is the black sheep of figure skating. But with the triple Axel, she not only finds her place in the history books, but also gives the figure skating establishment the middle finger.
"All those people who said I couldn't do it... well, fuck you! I did it," says Tonya Harding off-camera.
America doesn't like that at all.
Aftermath - do you want to see the film?
To this day, the circumstances that led to Kerrigan's shattered kneecap have not been fully clarified. The film has a clear opinion on the extent to which Tonya was privy to the plans of husband Gillooly and bodyguard Eckhardt.
Gillespie skilfully plays with the image of the beautiful princess on the one hand, and the jealous arch-rival on the other. The problem: the actors are better than the film itself. It is in the second half, after the incident, that "I, Tonya" runs out of steam. Unnecessary lengths creep in and make the film seem more drawn out than its two-hour running time actually allows.
In addition, Gillespie and Rogers have to put up with the accusation of having sided too much with Harding. This is exemplified by the fact that rival Nancy Kerrigan doesn't get to say a single word in the film - apart from the snivelling lamentations after the assassination.
Thus, "I, Tonya" has become a daring character study that is particularly convincing in terms of acting, but less so in terms of content, because the suspense doesn't last until the end. This is by no means to say that the film is not worth seeing - on the contrary. It even manages to create unexpected sympathy for a woman who is usually portrayed by the media as evil personified.
However, he is a long way from the perfection of a flawlessly executed triple Axel followed by a double toe loop. Nevertheless: Go, see it!
Luca Fontana
Senior Editor
Luca.Fontana@digitecgalaxus.chI write about technology as if it were cinema, and about films as if they were real life. Between bits and blockbusters, I’m after stories that move people, not just generate clicks. And yes – sometimes I listen to film scores louder than I probably should.
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