The Female Gaze: ‘I, Tonya’ Review Round-Up
I, Tonya has been bumming around the festival circuit for months, but the film has finally arrived for general audiences. Starring Margot Robbie as the titular Tonya Harding, this film from director Craig Gillespie blends together an unreliable narrator mockmentary-style to peel back the layers behind the most shocking moment in figure skating history.
What are female and non-binary critics saying? Individual reviews are collected below, but the consensus seems to be that Robbie gives stand out performance. However, milage may vary on whether or not the darkly comedic tone of the film adds to the tragedy of Harding’s life or crosses the line into mockery.
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Title: I, Tonya Review
Author: Christy Lemire
Outlet: Roger Ebert
Link: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/i-tonya-2017
Excerpt: You probably haven’t thought about Tonya Harding much recently. Truly, why would you? […] All of which makes I, Tonya such a wonder. Not only will it make you think about Tonya Harding again, it will make you do so with unexpected sympathy. It will make you feel for her, deeply, for the abuse and pain she’s suffered for so much of her life.
Title: I, Tonya is the biopic we ‘knee-d’ right now
Author: Sara Stewart
Outlet: New York Post
Link: https://nypost.com/2017/12/06/i-tonya-is-the-biopic-we-kneed-right-now/
Excerpt: I, Tonya is far from a deification of its subject, but it delivers a slam to the prim world of figure-skating for cold-shouldering Harding from the start. With her blue-collar upbringing and cheap, all-wrong costumes, she never fit the desired mold (as she’s told by a judge at one point). Behind the scenes, she went straight from being beaten by her mother to being beaten by her husband.
Title: Review: I, Tonya. I, Punching Bag. I, Punchline.
Author: Manohla Dargis
Outlet: New York Times
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/06/movies/i-tonya-review-margot-robbie.html?_r=0
Excerpt: As I, Tonya skips here and there and thickens the plot, it becomes increasingly baffling why the filmmakers decided to put a comic spin on this pathetic, dispiriting story. No matter how hard the movie tries to coax out laughs, there’s little about Ms. Harding, her circumstances or her choices that skews as funny.
Title: I, Tonya Spins Exhilarating Story of Class and Abuse in America
Author: April Wolfe
Outlet: Village Voice
Link: https://www.villagevoice.com/2017/12/06/i-tonya-spins-exhilarating-story-of-class-and-abuse-in-america/
Excerpt: One of the most beautiful moments comes during Harding’s dramatized interview. Robbie as Tonya has just reminisced about the day she landed her first triple axel. She’s smiling, seemingly off in a different place. Then she wipes at her eyes and ashes her cigarette, saying, “Sorry, no one ever asks me about that anymore.” I, Tonya ensures that they will.
Title: I, Tonya gives a meta, darkly funny tribute
Author: Katie Walsh
Outlet: The Spec
Link: https://www.thespec.com/whatson-story/7980975-movie-review-i-tonya-gives-meta-darkly-funny-tribute-to-infamous-ice-skater-tonya-harding/
Excerpt: I, Tonya walks an impossibly tight rope, flip-flopping from dark to funny to darkly funny. The outlandish and visceral film has a shaggy dog appeal, and it never stops talking. At the heart is a fully-committed Robbie, who embodies Tonya’s stubborn fire and gives her the dignity she was never afforded.
Title: I, Tonya review
Author: Alison Wilmore
Outlet: BuzzFeed
Link: https://www.buzzfeed.com/alisonwillmore/i-tonya-and-mollys-game?utm_term=.yd4rEDYb7#.scL0Gg9bR
Excerpt: In other words, I, Tonya wears its subjectivity up front, something that fuels Gillespie’s riskiest choice: to show Harding’s life as one of moving from an abusive childhood with LaVona into an abusive marriage with Jeff into an abusive relationship with the American public. That is, at least, how Tonya presents it, as she runs up against figure skating’s class ceiling early and repeatedly, too poor, too sturdy, and too “redneck” to please the sport’s gatekeepers, but too good at skating and jumping to be ignored.
Title: I, Tonya: A Woman at War with Herself
Author: MaryAnn Johanson
Outlet: FlickFilospher
Link: https://www.flickfilosopher.com/2017/12/tonya-movie-review-woman-war.html
Excerpt: I, Tonya is unquestionably on Harding’s side, though: the film makes plain that whatever poor choices she may or may not have made, and whatever she may or may not be lying about, she got a raw deal out of life at every turn. Her mother, LaVona Golden, is abusive, emotionally and physically, and excuses her abuse as a kind of encouragement of her daughter, who showed talent on the ice from a very young age.
Title: I, Tonya review
Author: Laura Clifford
Outlet: Reeling Reviews
Link: https://www.reelingreviews.com/itonya.htm
Excerpt: If at first Margot Robbie seemed unlikely casting, the deglammed actress, who learned how to skate for the role, quickly makes us forget. Robbie’s Harding is a rebel, but her outer toughness hides deep hurt, just as her smoking coexists with (uncommented upon) asthma. In one incredible scene, Robbie makes up her face, exaggerated for the rink. She looks ghoulish, but practices a bright smile as tears stream down her face.
Title: I, Tonya review
Author: Yasmin Kleinbart
Outlet: The Young Folks
Link: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/film/114133/movie-review-i-tonya/
Excerpt: Robbie gives the performance of a lifetime as an athlete who is at the top of her sport, but is constantly dragged down by her low sense of self-worth. Whether it’s from her mother (Allison Janney) or her husband, Gilooly (Sebastian Stan), Harding feels like she deserves every black eye she gets. It’s why she can’t seem to leave her husband even after filing a restraining order. Who else would want her?
Title: I, Tonya review: Margot Robbie shines
Author: Danielle Solzman
Outlet: Cultured Vultures
Link: https://culturedvultures.com/i-tonya-2017-review/
Excerpt: Robbie’s performance is truly impressive when one takes into account that I, Tonya was shot in a month. Much credit has to go to costume designer Jennifer Johnson, hair stylist Mary Everett and makeup artist Deborah La Mia Denaver for helping her transform quickly into the figure skater, not just as an adult but as a teenager, too.
Title: I, Tonya finds humanity in villains of infamous skating scandal
Author: Annlee Ellington
Outlet: Biz Journals
Link: https://www.bizjournals.com/losangeles/news/2017/12/08/flick-picks-i-tonya-finds-humanity-in-villains.html
Excerpt: Robbie, who remarkably didn’t know Harding’s story when she first read the script, brings real empathy to a woman who’s strong, who’s tough, who, with bags under her eyes, looks much older than her 23 years when the world’s attention finally turns on her — not with love but with gleeful hate
Title: Give Margot Robbie the gold for I, Tonya
Author: Caryn James
Outlet: BBC
Link: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20171208-film-review-give-margot-robbie-the-gold-for-i-tonya
Excerpt: Director Craig Gillespie deftly combines Harding’s dramatic story — about class, physical abuse and fierce determination — with black comedy about celebrity and about the bumbling attack on Kerrigan. But it is Robbie who gives the film its heart. She captures the contradictions, not of Harding’s public image, but of her self-image: part defiant heroine, part self-pitying victim.
Title: Margot Robbie is a revelation in I, Tonya
Author: Leah Greenblatt
Outlet: Entertainment Weekly
Link: http://ew.com/movies/2017/12/07/i-tonya-review/
Excerpt: Director Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl) frames the movie as a faux documentary stuffed with flashbacks, talking heads, and fourth-wall-breaking asides. His form of satire can be a blunt instrument; it’s hard to tell sometimes whether he wants to be the Coen brothers, Christopher Guest, or just Spinal Tap on ice. But he’s also working from a script where the truth was irrefutably stranger than any fiction.
Title: I, Tonya is not about Nancy Kerrigan Drama
Author: Ester Zuckerman
Outlet: Marie Claire
Link: http://www.marieclaire.com/culture/news/a29551/i-tonya-movie-review/
Excerpt: So if you’re looking to see Tonya as a) the mastermind of the attack, or b) a complete innocent — you won’t be satisfied. You also won’t be satisfied if you’re hoping this movie is a feminist analysis that paints Tonya in a revisionist light. Mostly, the film just finds perverse humor in the whole situation.
Title: I, Tonya Makes a Powerful Case for Tonya Harding, American Icon
Author: Katey Rich
Outlet: Vanity Fair
Link: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/09/i-tonya-review-tonya-harding-movie-margot-robbie-allison-janney-nancy-kerrigan
Excerpt: But Tonya Harding is a series of human tonal shifts. The film’s present-day interviews, remarkably similar to the ones seen in the 2014 30 for 30 documentary The Price of Gold, show a woman resigned to her fate as a tabloid spectacle, amused by her lingering fame, and furious about the terrible hand she drew.
Title: I, Tonya review
Author: Susan G. Cole
Outlet: Now Toronto
Link: https://nowtoronto.com/movies/tiff2017/i-tonya-harding-movie-review/
Excerpt: Robbie, who does some of her own skating, finds a way to make the foul-mouthed Harding sympathetic, giving nuance to a character that combines ambition and insecurity. But Stephen Rogers deserves the credit for creating the very clever script. It’s laugh-out-loud funny, yet comments on a ton of very serious issues — the demands of sport, the perils of celebrity, the impact of violence against women, and often breaks the fourth wall.
Title: I, Tonya: Margot Robbie’s Performance Will Make Your Head Spin
Author: Mara Reinstein
Outlet: US Weekly
Link: https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/i-tonya-review-margot-robbie-dazzles-as-tonya-harding/
Excerpt: De-glamming for a role is easy; using nerve and verve to turn this longtime one-woman punchline into a sympathetic heroine is a downright miracle. For that, Robbie will be showered in accolades. And Harding? Well, she ain’t exactly the Billie Jean King of the figure-skating world. But she still overcame a slew of obstacles to do things her way.
Title: I, Tonya Review
Author: Doris Toumarkine
Outlet: Film Journal
Link: http://www.filmjournal.com/reviews/film-review-i-tonya
Excerpt: But just as performances thrill, so does the cinematic artistry and craftsmanship, tech and otherwise. Steven Rogers’ script is an uncanny combination of humor, credibility and right tone that beautifully captures the ugliness of this slice of Americana and pop-culture history.
Title: I, Tonya Can’t Compete With The Real Thing
Author: Josephine Livingstone
Outlet: New Republic
Link: https://newrepublic.com/article/146102/i-tonya-cant-compete-real-thing
Excerpt: Riffing on the narration-plus-archival-footage technique in “The Price of Gold,” director Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl) weaves talking-head voiceovers into flashback scenes. […] Even better is a glorious training montage during Harding’s second run at the Olympics. “She actually did this,” her coach Diane Rawlinson (Julianne Nicholson) tells us, as Tonya runs up a mountain with two water coolers strung milkmaid-style to a pole over her shoulders.
Title: In I, Tonya, Margot Robbie Reclaims Tonya Harding
Author: Julia Felsenthal
Outlet: Vogue
Link: https://www.vogue.com/article/i-tonya-movie-review-margot-robbie-reclaims-tonya-harding
Excerpt: In the prim, uptight, balletic world of figure skating, [Harding] stuck out like a sore thumb. Skating was meant to be her ticket out of a hardscrabble childhood, but the powers that be quickly made clear that talent and incredible athleticism did not, especially in the dark ages of the 1980s and ’90s, mean sponsorship dollars or even gold medals.
Title: How I, Tonya Handles Domestic Violence On Film
Author: Anne Cohen
Outlet: Refinery 29
Link: http://www.refinery29.com/2017/12/184268/i-tonya-review-ex-husband-abuse
Excerpt: Gillespie has said that the way in which Harding’s repeated abuse would be handled was of paramount importance to Robbie, who also produced the film. “I said, I think we have to be brutal,” he told Vogue. “We can’t shy away from it because this informs so much of who she is, what she lived with, the choices she makes, how she sees the world.” At its core, this is a film about domestic abuse: how it starts, how quickly it escalates, and how the numbing repetition of such violence colors the victim’s worldview.
Title: I, Tonya Takes the Gold Medal in Hysterical Fiction
Author: Courtney Howard
Outlet: Sassy Mama
Link: http://sassymamainla.com/2017/11/review-tonya-takes-gold-medal-hysterical-fiction/.html
Excerpt: Outside of the crunchy, frizzy, frequently ponytailed hair, Robbie doesn’t look a thing like Tonya, yet her portrayal is uncanny. She captures the essence of Harding minus any mimicry. She’s a prowling panther, ferociously entertaining in this part, giving the sensational material an electric charge. It’s a seemingly-impossible challenge, but she adds layered depth to pop culture’s notorious bad girl.
Title: I, Tonya Review
Author: Joi Childs
Outlet: Black Girl Nerds
Link: https://blackgirlnerds.com/bgn-tiff-2017-review-tonya/
Excerpt: I, Tonya is also an absurdist film in that matches the absurdity of the scandal itself. […] That is where the success of the film lies: it’s cast commitment. Because the real-life people and events of this story are so odd, it lends to over the top performances that work. The highlight of this film is Allison Janney, playing Harding’s mother. As chain-smoking, bird-loving, crass LaVona, it’s hard to see where the real character ends and Janney’s portrayal of her begins.
Title: I, Tonya — Smooth Skating Through A Bumpy Life
Author: Layne Wilson
Outlet: At Home In Hollywood
Link: http://athomeinhollywood.com/2017/12/i-tonya-review/
Excerpt: In the end I, Tonya points an accusing finger at us — at the audience who can’t get enough of scandal and salacious stories. But she’s no victim. Tonya was a fighter, and she still is.
Title: I, Tonya Review
Author: Nell Minow
Outlet: Movie Mom
Link: http://moviemom.maxlazebnik.com/i-tonya/
Excerpt: [T]his film takes us behind the scenes of a real-life catastrophe based on dreams of stardom, hopeless miscalculation about their own abilities, and a distorted, media-fueled idea of reality. We may watch expecting to laugh and feel superior, but the prismatic approach, with characters speaking to us to explain their perspectives (or try to put the blame on each other) is surprisingly sympathetic, grounded, and insightful.
Title: I, Tonya. You, America. Us, Guilty.
Author: Rain Jokinen
Outlet: Mulling Movies
Link: http://www.mullingmovies.com/2017/12/i-tonya-you-america-us-guilty.html
Excerpt: Play the story straight, and you’ve got yourself a Lifetime movie. But play up the story’s absurdities, add a dash of GoodFellas-era Scorsese-style editing and music cues, and you’ve got yourself a surprising movie that will make you laugh while your heart breaks a little for Tonya Harding.
Title: I, Tonya
Author: Melissa Anderson
Outlet: 4Columns
Link: http://www.4columns.org/anderson-melissa/i-tonya
Excerpt: Feebly structured as a Rashomon of the rink, I, Tonya culminates with its protagonist, years removed from both her glory and infamy, declaring this wearying axiom: “There’s no such thing as truth. I mean, it’s bullshit. Everyone has their own truth.”
Title: Margot Robbie as I, Tonya
Author: Sarah Marrs
Outlet: Lainey Gossip
Link: http://www.laineygossip.com/tiff-review-i-tonya-starring-margot-robbie/47889
Excerpt: But what really powers I, Tonya is class. The heart of I, Tonya is Tonya Harding’s struggle with a sport and a system rooted in a world of privilege that is closed to Tonya, and even when she tries to fit in, it proves indecipherable. Nancy Kerrigan came from a working class background, but her camera-ready blue collar family is a world away from Tonya’s hardscrabble upbringing in Portland, Oregon. Class isn’t just defined as “rich, and everyone else”, and what I, Tonya does so well is show how far the gulf really is between the strata — Tonya is lower class, Nancy is working class, but for all the difference it affords her, Nancy might as well be royalty.
Title: I, Tonya is the film about a 1994 figure-skating scandal we need
Author: Alissa Wilkinson
Outlet: Vox
Link: https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/9/14/16301552/i-tonya-harding-kerrigan-review-tiff
Excerpt: The film drives hard on the point that the world both on and off the ice was set against Tonya from the start, specifically because of what she nonchalantly and unapologetically calls her own status as a “redneck.” I, Tonya renders a working-class existence in America without patronization, and Tonya never wants to be like the girls she skates against, but she’s angry that the judges hold it against her. Skating is a sport, not a beauty pageant; why should her homemade costumes and permed hair count against her?
Title: Tonya Harding’s Story is Played as a Comedy and a Tragedy in I, Tonya
Author: Angie Han
Outlet: Mashable
Link: http://mashable.com/2017/09/09/i-tonya-movie-review/#hMK0ONj6bOq6
Excerpt: I, Tonya redeems its subject from the depths of cartoon villainy that we’d condemned her to, but it doesn’t turn her into a misunderstood hero or a mere victim of circumstance, either. It just asks us to consider Tonya as a human being.
Title: I, Tonya Review
Author: Violet Lucca
Outlet: Film Comment
Link: https://www.filmcomment.com/article/review-i-tonya-margot-robbie/
Excerpt: Physically and verbally abused by her chain-smoking stage mother (wondrously bitter Alison Janney) well into adulthood, she moves in with future ex-husband Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan), who also abuses her. When Harding finally summons the strength to leave, she returns to him after being told by a skating judge that she needs to embody more traditional values to truly advance in the sport. This heartless mandate comes after years of similar judges denying Tonya points for her bodily appearance, homemade costumes, makeup, and musical choices
