I, Tonya

I, Tonya casts Margot Robbie as notorious athlete Tonya Harding, with the movie detailing her tough upbringing and eventual rise through the ranks as a competitive ice skater. Filmmaker Craig Gillespie has infused the early part of I, Tonya with a blisteringly-paced sensibility that’s admittedly quite difficult to resist, and it’s clear, too, that the movie benefits substantially from Robbie’s immersive turn as the far-from-likeable central character. (Robbie’s strong work is matched by a top-notch supporting cast that includes Sebastian Stan, Julianne Nicholson, and Allison Janney.) Gillespie, working from a script by Steven Rogers, does an effective job of painting a somewhat less-than-flattering portrayal of the protagonist’s hard-scrabble existence, with the strength of the film’s opening stretch standing in sharp contrast to a middling midsection that grows less and less interesting as time progresses. It’s the inevitable emphasis on Harding’s rivalry with Nancy Kerrigan that triggers I, Tonya‘s marginal downfall, as Gillespie, in addition to padding out this portion of the narrative to a somewhat unreasonable extent, simply doesn’t have the skill required to wholeheartedly pull off this decidedly over-the-top aspect (ie Gillespie’s no Martin Scorsese, that’s for sure). The end result is a decent biopic that could and should have been better, with Robbie’s transformative performance trapped within the confines of an overlong, overblown disappointment.

**1/2 out of ****