Ice Princess Rebel Trash Monster Liar Victim Queen

FIGURE SKATER TONYA HARDING WAS AT THE CENTER OF THE TABLOID SCANDAL THAT ROCKED THE 1994 OLYMPICS. NOW THE MOVIE I, TONYA TELLS HER SIDE OF THE STORY. BUT IS IT TRUE? 

- Shirley Li

WE’RE SITTING ON THE EIGHTH FLOOR OF A Manhattan office building, and Allison Janney is about to say what she really thinks of Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding. More than 20 years ago, an attack on Harding’s competitor Nancy Kerrigan implicated Harding and ignited a media frenzy that rocked the 1994 Olympics and rattled the refined ethos of the sport. Does the actress, who plays Harding’s acid-tongued mother in I, Tonya, think Harding had anything to do with the incident? But just as Janney opens her mouth, the building’s fire alarm starts blaring. “Well!” Janney says, grinning. “Maybe we should go.”

We might as well. Because whatever Janney’s—or anyone’s—feelings about Harding may be, this movie is likely to challenge them. The darkly comedic drama from director Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl) and writer Steven Rogers (Love the Coopers) chronicles the journey of Harding (Suicide Squad’s Margot Robbie) from figure-skating prodigy to disgraced Olympian from multiple perspectives—because, as Robbie’s Harding bitterly declares in the film, “there’s no such thing as truth.”

But there is such a thing as reality. And in reality, a man hired by Harding’s ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, and her bodyguard Shawn Eckardt kneecapped rival Nancy Kerrigan on Jan. 6, 1994, weeks ahead of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. The men served time in prison. Harding, after pleading guilty to obstructing the investigation, received a lifetime ban from competitive skating.