My readers… Now you know how much I like to define words. Here is my defined word for I, Tonya…

Farce: A comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterizations and ludicrously improbable situations.

PERFECT.

No assumptions – For those of you who don’t know the details, I, Tonya is the story of figure skater Tonya Harding and the events that surrounded the battery on fellow figure skater Nancy Kerrigan at the 1994 Winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway.

I’m torn as to whether I want to refer to the farce in this case as the movie or the truth… It’s really a toss up… I’ll finish this review and let you decide…

Story: This story is told interview style. Each character tells their side of the story. Clever. It gives the writer the opportunity to showcase each of the characters in their own light. Stephen Rogers does a good job of putting a spotlight on this story and these characters for exactly who they are and what they are.

This is the kind of story that an interviewer or writer can just sit back and let the camera roll… the story really tells itself…

Performances: Margo Robbie as Tonya Harding is excellent. Sebastian Stan as Jeff Gillooly is indistinguishable. But Allison Janney as Tonya’s mother LaVona… absolutely channeled. Both Margo and Allison are nominated for Oscars… Allison will win. Margo has some tough competition this year. But, she is Oscar winner bound…

Of note: Bobby Cannavale as Hard Copy producer Martin Maddox was like adding pepper to soup. It gives the story just a little extra kick… And Paul Walter Hauser as Gillooly’s friend Shawn Eckhardt just makes you drop your head in shame…

Visual: The stand out images in this film are how pointed the director needed to be about Tonya’s world, living on the wrong side of the tracks. There’s even a bumbling scene right after Nancy Kerrigan’s assault/battery that looks like it could have been pulled directly from a three stooges movie…

The costumes look low budget whether they are or not. The cars are all hoopdie/beaters. Her skating costumes look hand-made-tacky and the skating judges are not shy about using that against Tonya. The houses they live in… The jobs she and her mother have in diners… It all creates the look of a disadvantaged lifestyle…

Rating: For me, this movie gets a B+ for being more comedy than drama. I don’t think it’s supposed to be funny… But… One can’t help but laugh hysterically at the antics of Tanya, her mother, Jeff and his dumb friend Shawn. The whole thing is really unbelievable, but, for those of us who saw it live… We know it to be real.

See I, Tonya. Theater, DVD – just see it and decide if you think Farce is the right defined word. Unbelievable…