Just Films & That is a podcast that celebrates underrated and underseen films. In this episode, Alice chose I, Tonya. Now this film got pretty high scores from the critics, so how could it possibly be considered underrated? You can listen to all full episodes of Just Films & That now, wherever you get your podcasts.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:01 - I was the best figure skater in the world
00:03 at one point in time.
00:04 (upbeat music)
00:08 - Call that a clean skate?
00:09 Stop talking to her.
00:10 That girl is your enemy.
00:11 - So, "I, Tonya" then from 2017.
00:13 For those of you who don't know at home,
00:14 it is the story of the American ice skater,
00:16 figure skater Tonya Harding.
00:18 It's a little bit about the story of her life,
00:19 but it pays particular attention to an incident
00:23 where one of her rivals, Nancy Kerrigan,
00:25 was violently injured,
00:26 and it made her pretty infamous at the time.
00:29 So I picked this film because I think it might be
00:31 a tiny, tiny little bit underrated as an entity,
00:34 but I really do think that Margot Robbie's performance
00:37 in particular has gone underrated,
00:40 and she didn't sweep up as I would have expected her to
00:42 when it came to awards season.
00:44 So just to give you an idea of the scores,
00:47 over on IMDb at the time of recording, it gets a 7.5,
00:50 and then on Rotten Tomatoes, the audience give it 88%,
00:54 and then the critics give it 90%.
00:56 So pretty good scores,
00:58 but when they even out, they come to around the mid 80s,
01:01 and I think this is probably a high eight film.
01:04 There is a lot that I really like about this film.
01:06 I love the way that it's constructed.
01:08 I think some of the cinematic
01:10 and storytelling techniques are fantastic.
01:12 I think the script is really good and powerful,
01:14 but the main thing, the standout thing in this film for me
01:17 is the performances, and especially Margot Robbie.
01:20 She is absolutely incredible.
01:21 I've never seen her like this in anything else.
01:23 You're so used to her being this beautiful,
01:26 together, absolutely desirable human being
01:28 in most films that she's in,
01:30 and in this, she just isn't that at all.
01:32 She's so real.
01:33 She's incredibly dramatic, yet moving
01:35 and funny at times as well,
01:37 and the versatility and the range that she shows
01:39 in this film is absolutely outstanding,
01:41 and the cast around her are incredible as well.
01:43 You've got Sebastian Stan, who plays her husband.
01:45 He is an absolutely vile human being,
01:47 and he brings this to life really well,
01:49 and the same goes to the character of her mother,
01:51 played by Alison Janney.
01:52 Again, excellent performances,
01:54 helped by a fantastic script.
01:56 The film does a lot with unreliable narrators
01:58 and narration in general, so there are parts of it
02:00 where you're seeing Tonya's mother
02:03 through Tonya's own eyes.
02:04 You're seeing Tonya through her mother's eyes,
02:07 and there's a lot on the shoulders of that character
02:09 on Alison Janney's performance,
02:11 because she has to both be liked and hated,
02:14 and she just gets the balance absolutely spot on.
02:18 What didn't you like about it, if there is anything?
02:20 - So the main thing for me is that every now and then,
02:22 Tonya would break the fourth wall
02:23 and look directly at the camera
02:24 to give her thoughts on what was happening
02:26 in a particular scene or at a particular moment,
02:28 and I found this a little bit jarring.
02:30 It would usually happen during really heightened scenes
02:33 where there's a lot of emotion and they're very intense,
02:35 so it would just throw me out the film a little bit
02:37 every time it happened, and I feel like, for me personally,
02:39 the film would have been a lot stronger without it.
02:42 - For me, based on what you've said,
02:43 I think it's probably underseen,
02:46 and it's probably about right in terms of its rating.
02:49 What would you say?
02:50 - For me, it is a little bit underrated.
02:52 That 7.5 on IMDb just drags it down
02:55 a little bit too much for me,
02:56 and I do think this is deserving of a much higher score.
02:59 So yeah, I still think that "I, Tonya" is underrated.
03:02 [BLANK_AUDIO]