I, Tonya

While she's either been marginal in big films or else in utterly awful films up until now, I still have a reasonable amount of affection for Margot Robbie. In the case of "Suicide Squad", the reason the film is awful has very little to do with her, and in the rest of her work, she's largely a marginal figure on a largely male story. "I Tonya" is where she cashes in on all that affection with a legitimately good role in the centre of the film. And she nails it. Trashy but gutsy, her Tonya Harding proves remarkably resilient to the slings and arrows fate has in store for her, whether it be a terror of a mother (played by Alison Janney in a performance that fascinates in her monstrousness), the snotty attitude of the figure skating establishment or her husband who veers between abusive and too dumb to function.

Craig Gillespie's film is largely a vehicle for the performances and the story. There are a couple of fumbles (in particular, in the skating sequences the digital doubling is, alas, very apparent, and the device of multiple perspectives being interviewed on the same events never really gives us much in the way of enlightening differences - indeed, Bobby Carnavale's tabloid journalist is only ever really used in narration). And the differing perspective on a life and story that has otherwise been remembered as old tabloid fodder does give a nice humanising side - again, particularly with Robbie's performance as Tonya. Paul Walter Hauser's deranged fantasist Shawn also steals whatever scenes he's in, as the guy responsible for most of the worst headlines of Tonya's life. I don't think this is by any means a perfect movie, but it's a solid entertainment with a little thematic depth that makes it a decent watch.