"I, Tonya" (2017)
- GoogaMooga
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"I, Tonya" (2017)
NOW WATCHING: "I, Tonya" (Craig Gillespie, 2017) -- This is an extraordinary film, a dazzling and beautifully shot sports biopic where the principal lead turns in an impressive physical feat to match the subject matter, world-class competition figure skating. In this case, it is about U.S. Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding, who becomes the first woman to perform a triple axel during a competition. She comes from a poor family, is abandoned by her father, and left with her cruel and single-minded mother, whose only way of showing any affection is to constantly remind her overworked child prodigy daughter about who it is that is paying for the skating lessons. All Tonya knows is to skate, and what starts out as a child's fascination with the sport when she is let loose on skates at three, turns into a living nightmare of physical and verbal abuse from her cruel mother and her violent boyfriend/husband. "I, Tonya" makes "Mommie Dearest " look like a fairy tale, it is a film which is both brutal and bleak, unflinchingly honest, and tragicomic when it breaks the fourth wall and winks at the audience. There is Tonya, bruised and battered, giving the audience a bloodied and disillusioned grin from the canvas floor of a boxing ring, and there is the cruel mother, LaVona, making absurd and pathetic attempts to exonerate herself. A triple axel is an almost superhuman feat, and to draw the audience in, we get the most amazing Steadicam cinematography, locked in step with Tonya's graceful skating performances, all whirling and dizzying, gliding in and out, to and fro, round and round, with breathtaking perfection. How was it even possible for an actress to match Tonya Harding's history-making achievement? And what does the film tell us about social mobility and class struggle, if not that here was a case of a rare and mistreated human being who ultimately was crushed by no-talents and gossip-mongering journalists? Highly recommended.
"When the desert comes, people will be sad; just as Cannery Row was sad when all the pilchards were caught and canned and eaten." - John Steinbeck
- jimboo
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Re: "I, Tonya" (2017)
Wonderful movie.
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- ChrisB
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Re: "I, Tonya" (2017)
Absolutely.