Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stan, Allison Janney, Julianne Nicholson, Paul Walter Hauser, Bobby Cannavale, Bojana Novakovic, Caitlin Carver, Maizie Smith, Mckenna Grace, Joshua Mikel.

Life is a circus that is often played out to the tune of someone else’s calling, rebel in any shape of form, become a thorn in the side of authority, and you end up paying the heaviest of penalties, whether you deserve them or not. To rebel against the system is everyone’s right, find your own tune to dance to, but when it goes wrong, there is nothing you can do but blame yourself.

It is in that perfect sense of dichotomy that the life of one of America’s most controversial, colourful and loved and loathed figure skaters of all time is played out. Despised by the snobbish elite, abused by one person and another, a rock and roll maverick on skates, held up as an example of what can be achieved if one sets their heart upon it, cruelly dismissed when all fell to pieces; I, Tonya is one of the great stories of our time, it is almost built upon the three faces of Greek theatre, and is made to be seen as epic, comedy, tragedy and heroic, in one fell swoop.

Tonya Harding’s name still resonates, a woman to whose then husband became a verb in the eyes of the media, to whom the eyes of the public were cast aside by comedians, pilloried, and satirised, fated and in many cases, a warning to those who are seen to stretch their talent at the expense of playing the game.

In many cases, and especially when presented with the genius of a film I, Tonya, Ms. Harding is a figure to be admired, dealing with the physical and mental abuse installed into her by her mother, becoming so single minded on being the first American woman to pull off a particularly daring move on ice, the Olympic gold a consuming thought, but one with a self-destructive streak that made her lose sight perhaps of a truth, that being a rebel, being a nonconformist and individual, does not make friends easily and rubs the conservative nature of many up the wrong way.

I, Tonya is a cinematic feast, the three elements of theatre going hand in hand with sublime attraction, admiration, non-conformist, a femme-fatale sense of beguiling beauty all wrapped in an enigma in which Margot Robbie as the ice skating mystery brings out the very best within.

It is too that moment in which rivalry becomes consuming and in which the life of Tonya Harding unravels. It is not hard to feel the sense of injustice placed upon her head when you learn that she was banned from ice skating for life, not easy to swallow the harm done to Nancy Kerrigan by persons of her acquaintance but with the majestic Allison Janney giving a performance befitting the aura displayed by Ms. Harding’s mother and Sebastian Stan as her ex-husband Jeff Gilhooly, I, Tonya is a film in which to witness, to make up your own mind of and to take heed at the lessons learned; be a maverick and a non-conformist all you want, but don’t blame others when it doesn’t work out for you.

A truly invigorating film, a classic of the century; I, Tonya works because the subjects at hand are truly universal.

Ian D. Hall