Margot Robbie Movies Skating

With such a dynamic central performance, this hilarious mockumentary account of Tonya Harding’s rivalry with Nancy Kerrigan skates close to celebrating her

I , Tonya is a bleakly hilarious tale of absolute unrepentance. It’s based on the true story of US figure skater Tonya Harding: reviled as the blue-collar, white-trash, black-hearted villain who at the very least attempted to cover up her ex-husband Jeff’s grotesque assault on her rival skater Nancy Kerrigan. He’d hired a couple of chaotic goons in 1994 to whack Nancy in the knee with a baton.

Margot Robbie gives a fantastically uninhibited performance as Tonya, fighting her way to the top from humble beginnings, frizzy of hair, angry of demeanour, often bringing out a raptor grimace on the ice, denoting pain or gloating triumph. Robbie has to suppress her natural glamour and poise for this: she is perhaps more obvious casting in a film called I, Nancy. Getting her to play both women would have been interesting.

Margot Robbie To Play Tonya Harding In Former Figure Skater's Biopic, 'i, Tonya'

Allison Janney almost pinches the entire film with her award-winning performance as LaVona, Tonya’s chain-smoking mom-slash-personal manager who believes in the motivational power of abuse. Timidly asked by someone to put her cigarette out while on the rink, LaVona snarls: “I’ll smoke quietly.” As with every film of this sort, there’s a debate to be had about accuracy. But one part I suspect is absolutely true to its subject. It never shows the smallest concern or sympathy about Nancy and her knee, and whether it hurt, and how she felt.

It is difficult to tell how lenient or even celebratory the film is being. Screen Tonya effectively asks us: Nancy got hit? Me too! Tonya got slapped around all the time growing up, by her mother and then by Jeff. She was discriminated against by snobbish judges who gave higher marks to less talented female skaters, those pampered princesses with picture-perfect smiles and non-trailerpark attitudes. And though the menfolk got prison time for the Nancy hit, Tonya got a fine and a permanent skating ban: a life sentence, even a kind of emotional death sentence. So should Nancy stop whining about her knee, because Tonya is the real victim? Even the tongue-in-cheek heroine? A tricky one, as this film does a bit of slippery soliloquising towards the end about the truth being relative and subjective. Wait – even the truth about Tonya getting beaten up?

The story is framed in a slightly tiresome mockumentary style, with the chief players (though not poor irrelevant old Nancy) interviewed in aged-up makeup, reflecting on those unhappy times. Inevitably, Janney – still grumpy, now breathing with an oxygen tank and snapping at the pet parrot on her shoulder – is even funnier in these sections. There’s a lot of Goodfellas-style voiceover and even some fourth-wall-breaking asides to the camera. These mannerisms are a little distracting, and the film works better when Janney and Robbie are giving us their performances straight.

Videos Of The Real Tonya Harding You Need To Watch To Truly Appreciate 'i, Tonya'

Tonya’s dad absents himself from the scene early on, and it’s LaVona who butts heads to get her little girl accepted by the toffee-nosed skating authorities. Soon, Tonya’s aggressively hungry style and technical panache get results, though unlike Will Ferrell’s legendary Chazz Michael Michaels in the comedy Blades of Glory, Tonya’s swaggering approach is tolerated, not loved. Her violent and inadequate husband Jeff (Sebastian Stan) feels emasculated by his wife’s success, an attitude that curdles even further with the end of their marriage, and with his dodgy drinking buddy Shawn (Paul Walter Hauser) he starts cooking up macho ideas to intimidate Tonya’s opponents.

In some ways, the story of Tonya Harding is like another sensational scandal, now being filmed: the tragi-farcical tale of British MP Jeremy Thorpe. He also had to hire, through a middleman, some incompetent idiot to carry out a deniable act of violence. Non-criminals don’t know how to hire professional competent hitmen; it is furthermore that firebreak of deniability, intended to preserve the perpetrator’s innocence, which creates the bizarre chaos.

I. Tonya is one of those rare films that gets better as it continues. Robbie grows into her role and she has a fascinating moment towards the very end: Tonya’s last skate, as the authorities are closing in and she knows the game is up. Her face is a mask of stricken denial, masquerading as the usual showbizzy beam, and Robbie very convincingly shows how Harding subconsciously contrives a nonsensical problem with the laces on her boot, as a way of sabotaging the whole business. She is finally flinching from the ordeal of skating under a burden of fear, shame, resentment – and a useless husband. That part of the film, the part about culpable Jeff and his loathsome delusional pal, has the ring of absolute truth.You have questions. I have some answers. Q: We just saw “I, Tonya, ” and I was wondering how much of the skating Margot Robbie actually did. A: Robbie, of course, played the notorious skater Tonya Harding in the comedy-drama based on Harding’s life.

How Margot Robbie Learned To Skate Like Tonya Harding For 'i, Tonya'

A: Robbie, of course, played the notorious skater Tonya Harding in the comedy-drama based on Harding’s life. And she spent months training for the film, Emmy-winning skating choreographer Sarah Kawahara said in an interview with Indiewire. As a result, Kawahara said, “Margot did a lot of her own skating, ” including high kicks, head rolls and “the position of prepping the triple axel and going into the triple axel and then landing it.”

That said, there were also two skating doubles that Kawahara did “the heavy lifting, the big jumps and the fast spins and the footwork.” Entertainment Weekly noted that special 3-D head scans of Robbie’s head were used to superimpose her on the doubles’ faces when they were close to the camera.

For those of you wanting to see this movie magic, “I, Tonya, ” is now available on DVD, Blu-ray, digital and On Demand.

Margot Robbie To Star As Disgraced Ice Skater Tonya Harding In 'i,tonya'

Q: I was watching my recording of the new program “Instinct” when it was cut off because of a late start. It appears that an NCAA basketball game went beyond its allocated time and delayed “Instinct.” There was no warning from CBS that they were going to cut off the program and no attempt to extend it. If they are going to cater to sports fans by extending their coverage, the entire programming should be shifted forward so that no shows are cut off.

A: As far as I know, “Instinct” was not cut off; it started about 37 minutes late in Ohio and ran in its entirety, as did the other delayed-by-basketball programs on the network that night. Your problem was one that crops up often when shows air after live events — especially sports such as football, basketball and golf. (This issue comes up a lot during NFL seasons when there are frequent late-afternoon games.) No one knows for certain when a live game is going to end, so advance schedules are at best an educated guess; at the same time, in most cases live games are carried to their conclusion even if that includes overtime, countless time-outs or other causes of extended time.

The problem, then, is in the recording of the shows. DVRs and other recorders react to the scheduled program time and end as originally planned. But if you suspect an event before your favorite show is going to run long, you need to add time to the scheduled recording. When I schedule on my cable DVR, I get a set of options including a choice of adjusting both the start and end time of a program to be recorded. If, then, I know a program is going to start late, I can adjust the start time, and if I think it will run longer than scheduled, I can add anywhere from one minute to two hours to the recording time. In almost all cases that ensures I will get the program I am looking for in its entirety.

Margot Robbie Set To Play Figure Skater Tonya Harding In I, Tonya Film

Q: I would love to have a DVD of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” starring Donny Osmond. Do you know if one is available? I would be so grateful to buy it for my daughters and myself.

A: Universal released a version of the production on DVD in 2000. It is billed as “inspired by” the London Palladium version of the stage show and, “specially filmed for video.” Besides Osmond, the cast includes Richard Attenborough and Joan Collins.

Q: We have found “Person of Interest” and “The Blacklist” on Netflix. How many episodes are there of each? Are they still making new episodes?

Margot Robbie: 'i Thought Plot About Controversial Skater Was Far Fetched

A: “The Blacklist” is in its fifth season and, after a short hiatus, will have new episodes on NBC starting April 4; it had aired 105 episodes before this break began. “Person of Interest” ended its five-season run in 2016 after 103 episodes.

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