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Movies

How I, Tonya Put a Fresh Spin on a Skating Scandal

Twenty years later, the biopic offers some new perspective and perhaps a shred of sympathy in the notorious story of disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding.
By Todd Jorgenson |
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Any biopic of disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding must detail what a lowlife and a loser she is, right? I, Tonya is too shrewd for such hasty conclusions.

The film positions Harding as a victim — of a tyrannical mother, a dimwitted husband, and an upper-crust sport that ostracizes outsiders. And more than two decades after a violence act of revenge precipitated a highly publicized downfall, the film offers some perspective and perhaps a shred of sympathy amid the chaos.

That wasn’t necessarily the intent of screenwriter Steven Rogers, who just sought a change of direction after a string of romantic comedies.

“I don’t even think I’ve ever been ice skating before,” Rogers said during the recent Austin Film Festival. “I had just written a Christmas movie, and I wanted to write something that was polar opposite of that.”

Rogers (Love the Coopers) became intrigued by Harding’s story after seeing a TV documentary, and sensed a fresh perspective might be needed. So the screenwriter went to her personal website.

“I called the number for her agent, and it was a Motel 6. That was a sign,” he said. “I wanted to take someone who was vilified and turn that on its ear, and this seemed like a good opportunity. It was a very funny, very tragic, and very crazy story.”

The story offers a mostly straightforward chronicle of Harding (Margot Robbie) during her rise to fame. She was an unapologetic redneck from Oregon who used the snobbery of the skating community to fuel her motivation, along with threats from her abusive and overbearing mother, LaVona (Allison Janney).

In 1991, she became the first skater to land the triple axel in competition, which earned her a top world ranking despite her abrasive attitude. She wound up competing twice at the Olympics, but became best known for her alleged involvement in an attack on fellow competitor Nancy Kerrigan during a 1994 practice session, perpetrated by ex-husband Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan), that turned into a worldwide scandal.

Once he reached them, neither Harding, now 47, nor Gillooly were reluctant to talk in depth about their recollections from those turbulent years together.

“Tonya had told the story a lot, so a lot of it came out by rote. I had to find a way around that,” Rogers said. “But Jeff had never really told anybody his side of events. He told the FBI and he told me.”

As he delved into his research, Rogers found many unanswered questions, about motives and actions, and his true-life subjects didn’t supply many clear-cut answers. That’s why Rogers and director Craig Gillespie (The Finest Hours) incorporated some mockumentary-style sequences into the film, where the actors re-create the interview footage almost verbatim.

“Their stories were so wildly contradictory. I thought I could just put all the different versions up there and let the audience decide what’s true,” Rogers said. “Our movie deals with the perception of truth, and what people tell themselves in order to be able to live with themselves. They’re all trying to control the narrative, which I think we all do when we tell stories.”

Robbie (Suicide Squad) aggressively pursued the title role despite the daunting combination of skating lessons and physical preparations required.

“She was very prepared and did her homework. She made it look effortless,” Rogers said. “There were days when she would play three or four different ages, in different makeup and different hair, and she would modulate her physicality and voice ever-so slightly. It was miraculous.”

More than 20 years later, Rogers suspects moviegoers might take a different view of Harding — and even Gillooly — now than they did in the early 1990s, during the dawn of tabloid television and the 24-hour news cycle. The screenwriter calls I, Tonya a cautionary tale.

“What I knew I got from the media, which was a very one-dimensional picture. They were just punchlines,” Rogers said. “It’s easy for the media to reduce someone to the hero or the villain, but what’s more complex is what’s true and interesting. I’m not trying to say these people did it or didn’t do it. I was just trying to make them human.”

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