The Film (5/5)

    Oddly, I feel like it's hard to write about I, Tonya without flashing back to my own vague memories of 1994.  I remember being 12 years old, and though I loathe sports now, I remember being caught up in the excitement around the Winter Olympics.  I had heard about the incident between Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding. At that young age, I had assumed it was a literal direct strike where Harding had performed an assault on her opponent(something the movie makes fun of). As no one corrected me, and I never looked to research it that is exactly how I remembered it until the pre-release for I, Tonya, and I was to find out the actual story of the event that has gone down in figure skating history.

    I, Tonya is in a nutshell a biopic of the life of figure skater Tonya Harding, however, describing it simply as such would be doing it a disservice. The film opens when Tonya is 4 years old and is brought by her Mother LaVona (Alison Janney) to a skating rink, to meet with a local skating pro, Diane for training. At first she is refused, until she begins to skate, and then we cut to competitions where the young Tonya begins winning almost immediately. 

     However, even though her skills are some of the greatest seen at the time, she refuses to bow to pressure to conform to be a normal looking figure skater, and chooses to use rock music, instead of classical, and homemade outfits instead of designer purchased ones. This causes her to get lower scores with the judges, and ends up causing her more frustration. In between all this, we begin to see into her personal life with her first love Jeff (Sebastian Stan), who seemingly has a hold on her, even though he is scheming, not exactly bright, and worst of all physically abusive toward her.  Jeff and his bizarre friend Shawn end up having a bigger impact on Tonya's life then could be imagined when they scheme to scare her biggest competitor Nancy Kerrigan, but in the process end up breaking her knee, and causing Tonya to lose her career and the life that she knew.

    I, Tonya is one of the most energetic biopics I have seen in years. It is not an easy watch as it shows frank depiction’s of domestic violence against Tonya both from her Mother  and also from her husband, but also in the same turn the film doesn't entirely play in a fully dramatic ballpark, and has a bizarre sense of humor to it. It is a unique balance that will have audiences disturbed, saddened, and also laughing sometimes within the same scene.

Audio/Video (4/5)

     I, Tonya is presented by Universal in a 2:39:1 1080p AVC encoded transfer preserving the OAR of the theatrical presentation. The Blu-ray is nicely detailed, and preserves the drab look, but natural look of the film. The film is sourced from multiple formats so digital and 35mm so there are grainier film like moments, and more clear digital-esque moments.

     The audio is presented in a DTS-HD 5.1 track in English. Everything here sounds clear and consise with dialogue and score coming through nicely with no issues.

Extras (2.5/5)

    Universal provides a director's commentary, deleted scenes, a short BTS featurette, and a trailer.

Overall

    I, Tonya is probably the best biopic I've seen in recent memory. The Blu-ray looks and sounds fantastic, and has a decent slate of extras. RECOMMENDED.