Film Review – I, Tonya

It isn’t easy to grasp what “I, Tonya” wants to be, and perhaps that’s what screenwriter Steven Rogers (“P.S. I Love You,” “Love the Coopers,” “Kate & Leopold”) is ultimately after with the project, creative an elusive tone for a specialized subject. Nobody was begging for a Tonya Harding bio-pic, and Rogers doesn’t exactly create one with the picture, which doesn’t make much time for the details of Harding’s life beyond her battles with abusive loved ones and the mental and physical combat she endured during her quest to become a figure skating champion. And there’s the whole Nancy Kerrigan thing, referred to here as “The Incident.” There’s a lot to unpack with “I, Tonya,” but Rogers offers only a tug of war match between tonalities, with part of the film trying to remain sincere when dealing with the downfall of a damaged woman, while the rest plays like a John Waters movie, populated with broad characters and cartoony performances.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com