Director: Craig Gillespie
Starring: Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stan, Allison Janney
Late in I, Tonya the film's eponymous protagonist wonders why it can't just be about the skating. It's a fair question in the specific context of the scene, wherein she's told that her athletic prowess is irrelevant because she's doesn't fit the image that US Figure Skating wants to put forward on the world stage, but it's a fair question in a larger sense, too. After the film was over, one of the images that stayed with me was a shot of 4 year old Tonya skating and how happy she was to be doing it. In the film's telling of her story, that was probably the last pure and unqualified moment of happiness she ever experienced and it makes you wonder, "Why couldn't it just have been about the skating?" or any sport for any kid who feels happy playing it. Why couldn't it have just been a thing that she enjoyed doing, rather than the thing that she was repeatedly told was the only thing that mattered and the only thing about her that gave her any value? I wouldn't say that I emerged from I, Tonya feeling like Tonya Harding is a hero, but I certainly came out of it with more sympathy for her than I expected because if even a quarter of this story is true then hers was a life that was always going to be marked by tragedy and ruin in some capacity or other.
