I Tonya

Afternoon Cinema ( There's nothing better)

Battling Alley cat Margot Robbie

I Tonya is a comedy/drama that has a great deal to say, very little of it about ice skating I must say.
Filmed in a part documentary, part direct to camera and part traditional narrative style it tells the conflicting story of the life of " redneck" figure skater Tonya Harding. Her glum upbringing, her relationships with her mother and husband and her eventual fall from grace from Olympic glory after that incident with Nancy Kerrigan.
It's a story of surviving what you are given in life , as Tonya from a very early age, was subjected to consistent verbal and physical abuse from her reptilian foul mouthed mother LaVona ( Alison Janney) who was obsessed in mailing her daughter an ice skating star.
The sport had no place for a junior star who couldn't afford the trappings of this all American middle class activity. When the other competitors wore fur coats when off the ice , young Tonya had to make do with a home made rabbit pelt coat and this heartbreaking snobbery within the sport sadly followed her to the end of her career. Despite talent she was scuppered from the start.
Played magnificently and with a subtle sympathy by Margot Robbie, the adult Tonya is portrayed as a product of her childhood and of a violent marriage, a battling, foul mouthed ally cat with very few allies and with her back up against the wall.
It's a towering performance by Robbie.
The Initial story of abuse makes way for the telling of the incompetent attempt by Harding's husband Jeff ( Sebastian Stan) to scupper Tonya's rival Nancy Kerrigan and although Tonya escapes his abuse and her toxic relationship with LaVona, her subsequent fall from grace is rather heartbreaking to watch.

Alison Janney ( I bet she had fun playing this mother from hell)

Like I said Margot Robbie is stunning in the title role. Stan almost matches her scene for scene but unsurprisingly Janney almost steals the show in a fringe wearing , chain smoking mother from hell performance. Her final scenes to camera with a small parrot on her shoulder have a special hypnotic and almost hysterical power all of their own .
9/10