On the surface, many may find the prospect of re-living the Tonya Harding story an unappetizing deja vu. The Olympic ice figure skater along with her then husband, Jeff Gillooly, were implicated in a knee-smashing attack on her prime U.S. skating competitor, Nancy Kerrigan, just prior to the 1994 Winter Olympics. The resulting media circus/feeding frenzy came to be regarded in some circles as a precursor to what is now our society’s increased penchant for sensationalized news and reality TV fare.
However, in the skillful hands of director Craig Gillespie, writer Steven Rogers and their filmmaking compatriots, Harding’s story as told in the movie I, Tonya (Neon, 30West), proves to be smart, funny and engaging, propelled by Margot Robbie’s tour de force portrayal of Harding. Principals in the story, including Harding, her mother (portrayed by Allison Janney) and Gillooly (Sebastian Stan), are shown today, looking back on their lives, providing their accounts of and perspectives on what happened.
“The trickiest challenge of the film is the tone,” observed Gillespie. “It’s a dance between drama and humor in the same moment.”
Indeed I, Tonya is a movie difficult to categorize. It’s part tongue-in-cheek documentary, biopic, drama and comedy rolled into one, even at times resembling a morality play of sorts, depicting parental and spousal abuse, sparking some understanding, even a bit of empathy for the infamous Harding.
She’s even skating against her personal life as judges fail to give her the competitive scores she deserves in the national championships—triple axels not withstanding—because she doesn’t come remotely close to the desirable all-American image that was a prerequisite back then to get a thumbs-up on the road to the Winter Games.
It’s a road littered with assorted offbeat unsavory characters including Harding’s aforementioned, acid-tongued mom who drives her daughter from the age of four to become a world-class skater yet in the process wreaks world-class havoc on her life, undermining her sense of self-worth. Janney’s character is both toxic and funny, simultaneously humorous and serious. Gillooly for a fleeting moment seems like the prince who’s there to rescue Harding from her upbringing. But ultimately he’s a loser of a guy who’s lacking in smarts and has a mean streak which translates into intermittently physically abusing his wife. There’s Shaw Eckhardt (played by Paul Walter Hauser), Gillooly’s buddy and criminal co-conspirator who has delusions of espionage grandeur. Eckhardt is ahead of his time, a perfect fit in today’s fake-news culture. Yet paradoxically, all of these characters are at times strangely likable, somehow bringing a perverse appeal to a story which tabloid journalism and apparently much of the public can’t get enough of.
Balancing all these characters and dynamics was a daunting job but one which Gillespie was up to; the director credited his commercialmaking experience with enabling him to tackle the project. A DGA Award winner for best commercial director of the year—an honor for which he’s been nominated four times—Gillespie, whose spotmaking/branded content roost is production house MJZ, explained, “I tend to be kind of fearless in the commercial world. I feel like I have a strong voice which I can build on. In a bizarre way I often take more chances in the commercial world than I have in the feature world. So I tried to approach this feature with my commercial mentality—pushing the boundaries a little more, not playing it safe. I had that luxury in part because this was a small independent film.”
The result is a movie that takes chances, is fresh, different and genre-bending—and which made its mark at the recent Toronto International Film Festival, taking 2nd place in the People’s Choice Award voting.
Gillespie gives much credit to Rogers who wrote the I, Tonya script on spec. The director noted that Rogers was inspired by an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary on Harding and Kerrigan, which prompted him to seek out Gillooly and Harding for extensive interviews. The insights he garnered translated into a script which made its way to Gillespie. “It was a great script. Once I read it, I was immediately on board,” recalled Gillespie. Robbie was already attached to the film as a producer and acting lead. Janney—whom Gillespie described as “pure gold”—was attached per a mandate from writer Rogers. The most challenging bit of casting was finding someone to portray Gillooly. “Domestic violence is very tricky,” said Gillespie. “You have to be respectful of the seriousness of the situation but also need to stay invested in the character, jumping into the next scene which is often comedy. It’s hard to find someone who can carry that—but Sebastian Stan came in and we knew we had found the right guy.”
I, Tonya adds to a Gillespie feature filmography which also includes Million Dollar Arm, The Finest Hours, and Lars and the Real Girl, as well as TV endeavors such as multiple episodes of Showtime’s United States of Tara.
Spotmaking pedigree
Several of Gillespie’s key collaborators on I, Tonya have commercialmaking experience, including cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis, production designer Jade Healy and costume designer Jennifer Johnson. Yet I, Tonya marked the first collaboration for Gillespie with all of them.
“Nicolas has shot a lot of commercials but I had never worked with him before,” said Gillespie. “I love his work, including the feature Bullhead. There’s such a beautiful texture to his work. I wanted to deal with mixed media for this movie. We ended up shooting on 35mm film and used the ALEXA for interviews. I felt Nicolas would push the look more, take more chances which I was excited about. I had never done a feature with somebody so key who I had no relationship with before—but it worked out great. He got the humor and tone of the film immediately.”
Gillespie praised production designer Healy’s contributions to I, Tonya, noting it’s easy to “get cliche when dealing with these time periods, particularly the 1980s yet she managed to make it feel true without making you think too hard about it. It’s a tricky art.”
And Gillespie marveled at costume designer Johnson’s spontaneity and ability to adapt to a revised scene on the fly with an inventive outfit.
“Coming from commercials, these artists are used to moving quickly and that allows you to take more risks,” said Gillespie.
One notable collaborator who’s no stranger to Gillespie and sans commercialmaking experience was editor Tatiana S. Riegel. She earlier cut the director’s Lars and the Real Girl and episodes of United States of Tara. “We have such a shorthand, it’s almost as if there’s no shorthand,” said Gillespie of Riegel. “We get each other’s sensibilities. She did her first pass on I, Tonya and there were a number of scenes I didn’t even have to touch. Performance-wise she has great instincts. Simply put, she makes my life easier.”
