I Tonya - Class warfare

Intercontinental flights mean on one hand going for your holidays.  On the other hand though they mean movie time.  My recent British Airways flights to and from the USA each came equiped with some very modern entertainment systems.  The flight back in particular had an interactive 3D mapping system that killed more time than you might think possible by giving me a plethora of angles from which to view the virtual position of the plane on a globe.  This is all great.  But what we really want are the films.

I Tonya was my first film on the way out to Vegas.  As an Oscar winner from earlier this year that I hadn't yet seen, there was no contest when deciding what to watch first.  The story of Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan is one that will likely be unfamiliar to everyone under the age of 30, but to anyone who was watching the Olympics in the early 1990s these are names that will immediately recall the insane controversy of the time.  The story is retold here, and the film is clear in that it is doing the telling from Harding's point of view.  Both were world class figure skaters on the US Winter Olympics team.  Kerrigan was attacked at a training session and a conspiracy involving associates of Harding was quickly revealed to have had a hand in the attack.  The attack left her unable to compete in upcoming competitions, but still able to take part in the Olympics.  The subsequent media circus that whipped itself up around the pair stunted any and all interest in the actual skating competition, the personal drama behind the scenes appeared much more interesting for all involved.  Harding always denied involvement, but the world couldn't believe that she had nothing to do with it.

Margot Robbie plays Harding, in a performance that appears to involve a fair amount of physical endurance on her part and CGI effects allowing her to perform the manoeuvres on ice that are worthy of a Olympian.  The sequences of her on the ice are masterfully crafted.  The story is really one of an ordinary girl-turned-woman who simply loved dancing on ice, and of all the idiots, chancers and hangers-on around her who tried to interfere for reasons of jealousy, ignorance or self-promotion.  Allison Janney rightly got an Oscar for her portrayal as Tonya's mother - a foul-mouthed control freak who wants to get her daughter ready for the 'real world' by showing her no love at all.  Equally well-observed are Tonya's simpleton of an on-off-on boyfriend / husband and his self-aggrandising mate.  It isn't clear which is mean to be more ridiculous; the later's claim to be able to carry out covert ops, the former's willingness to believe him or the pair of them being so inept at carrying any part of their plan out.  It is their bungled attempt to injure Kerrigan that causes the entire controversy.

Ultimately the film is a story of a working class girl who was better than the establishment at something the establishment had decided no one beneath them had any right to be better than them at.  Harding is shown losing competitions because she won't dress the way the judges want.  Because she won't conduct herself 'like a lady'.  Because she won't abide by a set of rules designed to prove to people like her that she's trash.  If the establishment won't accept a 'white trash' girl beating them at their own sport, then it certainly won't accept her thumbing her nose at them while she does it.  When she is shown to be connected to the attack on Kerrigan, the sport's establishment quickly seizes the chance to deny her the only thing she has ever had to show her self-worth - her skating.

Ultimately the only crime Tonya Harding ever committed was to be working class and challenge the established order.  As with so much in society, the only real conspiracy was the one no one ever wants to talk about - class.