Film And Film Analysis: Tonya Harding

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For those of you who haven’t heard of I, Tonya, it’s a biopic/fiction/drama about the disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding (Margot Robbie). The film follows Tonya’s life from early childhood to 1991 when she became the first American woman to complete a triple axel in a competition, through to the 1994 scandal where her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan) conspired to injure Nancy Kerrigan, an Olympic hopeful and rival figure skater of Tonya’s. (non-spoilary section) I really enjoyed this movie, I thought it had a brilliant script that was engaging and intriguing and having the background information on Tonya greatly aids the movie’s purpose in showing how everyone has different accounts of interactions and events. The screenwriter …show more content…

idk) Ok, here is where I’m going to try and do a quick breakdown of characters and plot of this storyline (fingers-crossed!). Starting with the main character; Tonya Harding. In 1970 Portland, Oregon, a four-year-old Tonya is forced to ice skate by her emotionally and physically abusive mother LaVona Golden. She is exclusively coached and is eventually taken out of school to focus on her skating career, and rapidly becomes one of the best skaters in America but faces prejudice due to her lower social class, and not fitting the mold of a ‘traditional’ ice skater, a theme that frequently shows throughout the film. She then dates and eventually marries her boyfriend Jeff Gillooly but not long after is frequently abused by him. Fast-forward a bit and Tonya becomes the first woman ever to complete 2 triple axel jumps in competition, she then has a coach switch and comes in fourth at the 1992 Winter Olympics after failing to stick her landings. Things go downhill and Tonya moves back in with Jeff but not long after that, her original coach encourages her to train and compete in the 1994 Winter …show more content…

He recruits his friend/ Tonya’s self-appointed “bodyguard” Shawn Eckhardt to send the letters to Nancy from her hometown of Massachusetts (so they weren’t stamped as coming from Oregon where Tonya lives to avoid suspicion). But Eckhardt ignores this plan and hires 2 crooks to attack Nancy at her practice session in Detroit, hitting Kerrigan in the back of the knee with a bat leaving her badly injured. [the crooks get promptly arrested] Eckhardt brags about his involvement which leads the FBI to him where he points the finger at Jeff who is horrified by the change of plan. Tonya qualifies for the Olympic team but is then also horrified when she discovers who was behind the attack. She rats them out to the FBI, who later shows her transcript to Jeff who freaks out and Tonya leaves him for good. Jeff later implicates Tonya claiming she knew about the attack. Tonya comes in 8th at the Olympics whilst a recovering Nancy wins a silver medal. Jeff and Eckhardt are convicted and sentenced but Tonya’s trial is postponed till after the Olympics where she avoids jail but is banned from competitive skating for life. Jeff realizes that he’s ruined her carer, changes his name and re-marries. Tonya embraces her notoriety and becomes a female

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