A Trip Down Memory Lane
If you’re like me, you grew up in the mid 90s, the hay day of Olympic Figure Skating and the story of Tonya and Nancy. Nancy Kerrigan was the wasp-y, waif-y, New England figure skater that America wanted to love and the American Figure Skating Association wanted to shove down our throats as the winner… and she was boring as HELL. Tonya Harding on the other hand was the brash, rough-around-the-edges, bottle blond from Portland, Oregon with a decidedly, NOT ready for primetime family and personal history. She was the perfect villain to Nancy’s Ice Queen routine and it made for great TV. Tonya, however, was the more talented of the two, earning medals, championships and records Nancy never did. Too bad she also married a con-man and had a terrible mom. I, Tonya dives into this history: her upbringing, child abuse and why she felt compelled to hatch a dumb plan to break Nancy Kerrigan’s leg, when she could have just beat her on the Ice. But the court of opinion and the American press and their preference for camera-ready Olympic stories, makes it easy to see why this dumb idea happened at all.
Sebastian Stan as Jeff Gillooly
First of all: * shudder. *
Oscars to the makeup, hair and wardrobe team that made Sebastian Stan go from this:
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to this:
Uh, yikes. You can even see that goonish “bodyguard” behind him. Even in 1994 this event played out like an IRL Lifetime Movie but REAL. And now, it’s a dark dramedy on broken relationships and family set against the backdrop of women’s figure skating. Even a grody Sebastian Stan couldn’t keep us away.
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Allison Janney for the Oscar!
Allison Janney plays Tonya’s chain-smoking, foul mouthed mother, LaVona who if the trailer is any indication is both a sass-mouth anti-hero for moms and also a terrible, terrible human. LaVona was Tonya’s coach who pushed her to both champion levels of skating and also probably into the arms of someone like Jeff Gillooly and his hair-brained idea to off Nancy. Even in the few seconds Allison is in this trailer, she is a gem to watch.
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This tells you pretty much everything…
Source
I, Tonya is a story about unlikeable women who succeed… and who also do terrible stuff.
Move over Cutting Edge, there may be a new favorite Figure Skating movie in town!
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I, Tonya is in theaters December 8, 2017
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