YMMV / I, Tonya

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • How much sympathy does Tonya really deserve regarding her scores? Were they really as unfair as she claimed? If you look at her competition history, which began in 1985/86, her results are perfectly respectable and quite fair and are pretty reflective of her level of experience and the quality of her skating—namely, that they improved as she did, peaking in 1991, the year she mastered the triple axel—in one competition, she received two 6's ^note  Under the old scoring system, this was a perfect mark for technical merit (remarkable both because it had never happened before and because 6's were more commonly awarded for artistic impression). Any bad results appear to be in line with poor skating due to her myriad of personal issues. Plus, it's she who sabotaged herself at both of her Olympic appearances with late arrivals and dreadful practice sessions.
  • Tonya was a world-class athlete who was not a well-rounded skater. She was the equivalent of a baseball pitcher who can throw an incredible fastball, but not much else. Her incredible athleticism got her far, but figure skating also relies heavily on grace and artistry, which Tonya was deficient in. She was doomed to lose out to skaters such as Kerrigan, Oksana Baiul and others who possessed all three traits.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: Footage of the actual people portrayed in the film is played over the credits, revealing that some of the weirder aspects of the film were taken directly from this footage. Some examples include Tonya's mother being interviewed on her sofa, wearing a fur coat with a parakeet perched on her shoulder, and Shawn Eckardt's claims of being a counter-terrorism expert and bragging about being quoted in a travel magazine are taken almost verbatim from his interview with Diane Sawyer.
• Award Snub:
  • At the Academy Awards, the film won Best Supporting Actress (Allison Janney), and was also nominated for Best Actress (Margot Robbie) and Best Film Editing, but was left out of the Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Makeup & Hairstyling categories, despite being in the running for all three. Some think the film's divisive subject matter kept it from getting a Best Picture nom, along with competition from more Oscar-friendly films like Phantom Thread.
  • Additionally, Sebastian Stan's terrific performance was mostly ignored by critics and awards shows, made all the more noticeable by his costars constantly making ceremonies without him, even though he earned a similar level of praise.
• Awesome Music: The soundtrack has plenty of hits from back when including "Goodbye, Stranger", "Romeo & Juliet", and "25 or 6 to 4", "The Chain" and Siouxsie's version of "The Passenger".
• Base-Breaking Character: Though LaVona has been praised an enjoyably despicable and funny villain, she's also been criticized as being too over the top to take her threat and dramatic scenes seriously.
• Broken Base: Given this film is meant to be a more sympathetic look at Tonya Harding, one of the most controversial athletes in the world who stood at the epicenter of a major cheating scandal, the entire film's premise was, and continues to be, greatly divisive.
• Catharsis Factor: Tonya's Cluster F-Bomb "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Shawn is so very satisfying after putting up with his Know-Nothing Know-It-All bragging for most of the movie.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Much like Terence Fletcher, LaVona's creatively profane insults can often get a laugh despite what a horrible person she is.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • It's small, but the little girl telling Tonya she wants to be a skater, just like her. It's a genuinely sweet moment, and it even gets Tonya to smile.
  • Tonya reconnecting with her old coach, who tells her that she still believes in her, and that she has a shot at the winter Olympics.
    I know you don't believe in second chances. But I do.
• Jerkass Woobie: Though she can be a real bitch at times, and many of her problems stem from her own poor decisions, you sometimes can't help but feel sorry for Tonya, after seeing what she went through as a child, and especially when she gets banned from skating. Then there's the fact that the sensationalist media scapegoated her for a crime that she wasn't responsible for.
• Love to Hate: LaVona is a shit-tier human being, as well as an abusive mother, but one can't deny that Allison Janney's performance makes her a highlight of the film.
• Older Than They Think: This is actually the second time Tonya Harding's story has been told for the screen. The first was a cheap (and now rare) NBC TV movie from 1994 called Tonya & Nancy: The Inside Story starring Alexandra Powers as Tonya and Heather Langenkamp as Nancy Kerrigan. Interestingly, that film also utilized a staged interview/flashback format, and its depiction of Tonya's early life is very similar to I, Tonya. The biggest difference was an attempt to give Nancy Kerrigan equal focus, wheres I, Tonya demoted her to a minor role.
• Padding: The wire scene between Shawn and Jeff bloats the film's length to unnecessary degrees, taking the focus off the protagonist Tonya, and putting the story on hold with no stakes thanks to the Foregone Conclusion.
• She Really Can Act: This is one of the movies that further highlight that Margot Robbie can be a truly incredible actress, playing the coarse and unpolished mean girl and making Tonya sympathetic despite her behavior and abrasive personality. The scene where Tonya is putting on her makeup shows just how much she can emote through facial expressions alone.
• Signature Scene: The Oner of Tonya Harding putting on her makeup in the middle of an emotional breakdown as the stress over the Nancy Kerrigan case becomes too much to handle, highlighting the film's approach to her life story in a single silent moment while also showcasing Margot Robbie's ability to depict a wide range of emotions without saying a word.
• Special Effects Failure: The skating scenes, though overall impressive, do feature a few close-ups where Margot Robbie's face has clearly been superimposed onto her stunt double.
• Spiritual Successor: For the 1995 movie To Die For, which was also based (though more loosely) on a true story. Not only for its documentary style narrative and its dark humor, but the plot zigzags through many of the same themes expressed in the movie, including America's preoccupation with scandalous news stories. Both films also had Australian actresses in the lead.

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