Premiered at the Toronto Film Festival September 8,2017
Plot(Spoiler Alert)
All Tonya Harding has been taught growing up is how to ice skate. She has competed a lot in figure skating in order to be in the U.S. Figure Skating Championship. She’s had a rough life having a mother who was very hard on her and being married to a man who would beat on her just like her mother.
Blaine: Actress Margot Robbie wanted to find the roles that were more suitable for her more quickly, so she decided to develop a project herself. She put together her own producing company called LuckyChap. When the script for “I, Tonya” came to Margot, she looked through it as a producer. Margot thought the story was made up at first because it was funny and she didn’t know a thing about an event like this in 1994. She was 4 at the time when it happened. When Margot was told that it was based on true events, it felt like something else to her. She was blown away that something like this actually happened. The Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding scandal is one of the most infamous sports stories.
Margot did some research on Tonya Harding after that and the more she learned about her, the more she realized that this woman went through a lot. She loves it when someone rises up despite their circumstances. Margot Robbie was surprised that no one had asked about Tonya’s upbringing and her circumstances. Everyone just called her white trash and turned her into this monster in the media.
Margot didn’t want the movie to be a Tonya Harding vs Nancy Kerrigan story. The main goal was to show who Tonya Harding really is. Margot Robbie sat down with screenwriter Steven Rogers and her producing partner, Bryan Unkeless and she told them both that she wanted to play Tonya in the movie and they were ok with that. Margot thought she was going to have to change their minds if they said no.
Margot Robbie found a documentary Tonya made when she was 15 and in it she talked about how the relationship between her and her mother, LaVona Harding, wasn’t that great and that she was mean to her. It was heartbreaking for Margot to find out that no one really listened to what Tonya had to say about her mother like beating her up for one.
For six months, Margot Robbie watched every bit of skating, every interview and every documentary on Tonya Harding. She would play some of it on her iPod at night. The most challenging thing for Margot Robbie was learning how to ice skate because she is from Australia where the weather is really hot a lot of the time. She would practice ice skating for four months, two hours, five times a week. Margot felt like she was living at an ice skating rink during practice. Another thing that Margot Robbie’s job required was to put on some weight and wear prosthetics. Margot Robbie was nervous because this was her first leading role. Margot Robbie put more into this performance than any other performance she has done in the past. She shows that Tonya pretty much hated her life at the time because the way she was treated by her mother and husband, but figure skating helped take away that anger, except for when she got low scores by the judges.
Margot Robbie spent months studying the sad backstory of Harding’s life in preparation for the film. Margot developed sympathy for the fallen champion. When it came to meeting Tonya Harding in person, Margot was a little worried about how she was doing. Good news is Tonya is doing alright with herself.
Director Craig Gillespie had read the script for “I, Tonya” and thought it was an incredible combination of comedy and drama and that made him to want to tell it. Craig wanted people to feel guilty as they were watching the movie. He wanted people to feel like they were being judgmental and then have that perspective change. By the time Tonya Harding was 23, she was America’s villain, a sensation for all the wrong reasons and an easy of to punchine. I feel sorry for Tonya. She would get beat up by her mother and her husband. Her mother even threw a knife at her. I felt even sorrier when she is very depressed at the end when she is in court and the judge tells her that she is banned from figure skating. Tonya is crushed and is willing to do anything to figure skate again, but the judge tells her “no". Figure skating was her life and she loved it more than anything. Tonya can still ice skate for fun which is good.
Screenwriter Steven Rogers is good friends with Allison Janney and he wrote the part of Tonya’s mother, LaVona, for her. Allison was happy enough to be a part of a project with a great script. Steven told Allison about the project right from the beginning. He had just done a Christmas movie and he told Allison that he was thinking about writing a movie about Tonya Harding. Allison was fascinated with it because she used to be a figure skater before she decided to pursue a career in acting, plus she also remembered the Nancy Kerrigan incident from 1994. Allison has always been curious to know more about it.
Allison was surprised that the script Steven Rogers had developed was more focused on Tonya’s life story than the incident. Steven Rogers did a six hour interview with Tonya Harding in order to get her full story. Allison was happy to finally be in a movie that Steven wrote because he has always written parts for her in other movies, but she never got cast in them. Steven made sure that Allison Janney got cast in “I, Tonya”. The first thing Allison needed to figure out was how she was going to perform as LaVona. She didn’t know if LaVona was still alive or not. No body knew if she was still alive, not even her daughter, Tonya Harding, but Tonya didn’t give a shit. Tonya described who LaVona was to Allison. She was a very angry woman, who was very resentful and angry at the world. She felt that she gotten a raw and rotten deal out of life.
Steven Rogers sent a 1986 documentary on Tonya Harding when she was fifteen to Allison. LaVona was in that documentary being interviewed while wearing a fur coat and having a bird on her shoulder. Allison was fascinated to find out that LaVona dressed like that for an interview because Steven wrote that in the script and she couldn’t understand why at first. What Allison saw in those interviews of LaVona was someone who was very resentful and in denial. That helped Allison find her performance.
After Tonya Harding’s figure skating career was over she did boxing for a little while. She did six fights and only won three. It was her way of channeling the anger she has always felt for her mom and her husband and I think for losing her career in figure skating. Tonya was able to fight back at her husband at times while she was married to him. Even though I was proud that she found something new for herself still I felt sad because figure skating was more her thing than boxing and she couldn’t go back to it.
Tonya Harding got emotional when she saw the film and it showed her side of the story.
My rating on “I, Tonya” is five out of five stars.
