I, Tonya had some of the best performances of the year. And some of the best writing too.
Margot Robbie was great, obviously, but her supporting cast was better. Namely, Allison Janney as Tonya's mother LaVona. Janney has been in smaller roles in movies but has been making a name for herself on TV. I have not seen a lot of her older work but she was fantastic in this role.
Also, Julianne Nicholson as Tonya's coach. Nicholson also a character actor but this was probably her biggest movie to date and she was so unrecognizable because her portrayal was so different from her previous work.
And Paul Walter Hauser as Tonya's "bodyguard". I have only seen Hauser in TV's "Kingdom", but I needed to highlight his performance here because he made such an impact on the movie; always hitting the right note where you would love to hate him because he was so annoying.
I would make a prediction now that come Oscar night, this will probably not be Robbie's year; but Janney has to be a shoo-in.
Steven Rogers wrote a great script with a lot of humour to keep the tone light while dealing with some darker issues. And Craig Gillespie directed his best work since Fright Night.
And because Tonya was made out to be such a villain at the time of "the incident", the way this story unfolded made you feel more for her instead. This was probably the first time her side of things were revealed to the public. And I couldn't help but wonder how her life would have turned out had she not met her first husband played by Sebastian Stan.
There were also some very well placed fourth-wall-breaking, and I thought the best ones were delivered by Nicholson during the training sequence.
This was a very well-directed movie with great performances all around.
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