Review: ‘I, Tonya.’ I, Punching Bag. I, Punch Line. (Published 2017) (2024)

The subject of “I, Tonya” — a winking, eager-to-please, fictionalized gloss on the disgraced ice skater Tonya Harding — gets roughed up a lot. As a child, she is degraded and smacked around by her mother, who kicks little Tonya’s chair so violently the kid flies off it. When the teenage Tonya gets involved with the man she will marry, her life as a punching bag continues. Her husband smashes her head onto a glass surface so hard that shards scatter; he bloodies her nose a few times. He also points a gun at Tonya, threatening to kill her. Despite all the beatings and blood, “I, Tonya” insists it’s a comedy.

The real Tonya Harding went from fame to infamy in 1994, after she was implicated in an attack on Nancy Kerrigan, a rival. On Jan. 6, after practicing for the United States Figure Skating Championships in Detroit, Ms. Kerrigan was attacked by a man who thwacked her leg with a collapsible police baton. (He seems to have been going for her knee.) A camera captured Ms. Kerrigan on the ground as she repeatedly wailed “Why?” Ms. Harding went on to win the championship; it was a short-lived victory. The F.B.I. was soon questioning her, her ex-husband and their dumb-and-dumber associates. By June, Ms. Harding had been barred from competing for her role in the attack.

In one location, Jeff sits facing the camera in front of a large window framed by photo-covered walls. There’s a lot more visual coding going on with Tonya, who’s plunked down at a table in a modest kitchen wearing a pale jeans jacket and cowboy boots. Lank blond hair and bangs border her face; her neck has gone puffy. Looking into the camera, she occasionally draws on a cigarette and crosses her legs, one big, down-home, country-gal ankle resting on a knee. The real eye-catchers are the dirty dishes stacked in the sink behind her. They stay put and stay dirty, which seems curiously sloppy given that Tonya, a media veteran, is here to tell her truth. If you didn’t know she had a reputation as down-and-dirty, here’s a hint.

As Tonya and Jeff offer up alternating stories, her past, her abuse and her triumphs come into view. The only daughter of an unhappily married couple, the young Tonya is a daddy’s girl. Her father takes her hunting, teaching her how to shoot rabbit. Her awful mother, LaVona (Allison Janney, chilled and excellent), is the one who arranges for Tonya to take lessons with a skating coach (Julianne Nicholson). Tonya turns out to be a prodigy and is soon powering her way into the top echelon of the sport, despite the snobbery and visible discomfort of the judges who favor froufrou femininity over aggressive competition. They want gliding princesses, not grunting athletes like Tonya.