I, Tonya

First Hit: A very engaging story, supremely well-acted, and one of this years best films.

I loved how this film effectively dances between talking directly to the audience through interview cameras and commenting right at the audience during dramatic scenes, while giving us a straight up film. Breaking the plane between the story and the audience isn’t always done very effectively, but here it is perfect.

Tonya Harding (Margo Robbie) was well known as a rough, scrappy, and physical ice skater in the mid 1980’s through the mid 1990’s. She was raised by her abusive mother LaVona (Allison Janney) who threw her on the ice rink because that is all the seven-year-old Tonya wanted to do.

According to the film, LaVona hit Tonya, once threw a knife at her, but most egregiously never showed any empathy, love or caring towards Tonya. All she kept harping on was that she spent all her waitressing money on Tonya’s skating. She was so cold and mean that Tonya grew up knowing nothing about what a supportive, caring, or loving relationship might even look like.

What kept Tonya going through life was her ability to skate and skate well. She was the first woman to ever land a triple axel (3.5 spins in the air landing backwards on the outside edge of the skate) in a competition as well as completing two triple axels in a single competition. As a competitor, she was heads above everyone else in technical merit, scoring the first perfect 6.0 in the U.S. Championships. However, her hard scrabble background was reflected in her presentation scores. Because she was less graceful than physical and had poorly created handmade costumes, these scores were always low. Lastly, she also suffered from asthma which, at times inhibited her ability to skate with inner ease.

The worst and defining moment of her career was when her husband, Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan), helped to plan a physical attack on Tonya’s chief skating friend and rival Nancy Kerrigan (Caitlin Carver). The actual attack by Shane Stant (Ricky Russert) on Kerrigan’s knee was set into motion by Gillooly’s closest friend Shawn Eckhardt (Paul Walter Hauser). This attack was to give Tonya an advantage at the U.S. Championships and Olympics.

The film used faux, current day and after the fact, interviews of Tonya, Jeff, Shawn, and LaVona to set up certain sequences and sections of this story. The ice skating scenes were well done and effective in showing Tonya’s skating style. Having remembered watching these performances back when they actually happened, they conjured up the direct memories effectively.

Robbie was exquisite as the hard scrabble, poorly educated, and socially inept Tonya. Robbie did some of the skating scenes, and her ability to own Tonya’s physical presence while channeling her inner struggles was what made this work. Janney was beyond amazing as the uncaring emotionless LaVona. She was almost scary and her sitting in the faux interviews with the bird picking at her ear was inspired. Stan as the poorly educated and impulsive Gillooly, whose name became a verb for knee beating, was excellent. Watching him smolder, ready to burst into anger, reflected his inability to help Tonya. Hauser was perfect as the self-promoting dolt who was proud that he made history by hurting Kerrigan. His insistence that he was in international spy and agent was excellent. Julianne Nicholson as Tonya’s skating teacher and trainer, Diane Rawlinson, was excellent. Her slightly distanced engaged caring in working with Tonya and LaVona when Tonya was young and later, as an Olympian, was wonderful. Steven Rogers wrote an excellent screenplay. Craig Gillespie’s direction was spot on perfect. The vision came alive on the screen and I was fully engaged from the beginning.

Overall:  This was truly a fun, empathetic, and engaging story and film about Tonya Harding.

Novitiate

First Hit:  It was very well acted and I learned something about how nuns become nuns.

I was fully engaged with this film from beginning to end. What made this work was the story, direction and acting.

Nora Harris (Julianne Nicholson) and her daughter Cathleen (Margaret Qualley) are living alone. Nora is divorced and dates frequently and they are not religious. One Sunday she takes Cathleen to church to show her what religion is like. Nora does not believe in God or any structured religion. But something happens to Cathleen that day and after getting a scholarship to a Catholic high school, she becomes more curious about her continuing thoughts of God and Jesus. After graduation, decides to join a convent because she’s had a calling. Once there she quickly decides and commits to the process of becoming a nun.

Reverend Mother (Melissa Leo) has a very strict code of conduct and she’s exactly what you’d think of if you ever thought of a Reverend Mother being mean spirited, controlling, closed minded and fully believing she’s very self-righteous and speaks the word of God. The first six months Cathleen and the others learn about becoming a nun. Besides the very strict rules and program, and silence is observed from last bell (about 9:00 pm) till morning but the nuns in training find ways to communicate some.

A few of the new sisters begin to discover their sexuality and because it is not accepted behavior and against the scriptures, they struggle with what they’ve discovered about their bodies and the rules of being a nun.

After the initiation, the novices Novitiate, which means they marry the one they love—God. This ceremony was wonderfully staged and enlightening. I found myself fascinated with the whole thing.

When Cathleen wakes up from a very erotic dream, she becomes panicked and begins to starve herself for punishment. She also asks Reverend Mother for the knotted rope whip to self flagellate herself to make her stop thinking about sex and the feelings coming from it. She then meets Sister Emanuel (Rebecca Dayan) who arrives at this particular monastery because she wants the strictness Reverend Mother provides. We soon learn that she’s here to punish herself, through this strictness, because of the same sexual discovery at her previous monastery.

In the meantime, Reverend Mother is getting the Vatican II directives, which are communications from the Rome telling her that the church is changing and that her world is going to crumble and fall apart from these changes.

Watching Reverend Mother’s unholy behavior about implementing the rules wasn’t surprising because, for her, she was in control and in a vaunted position, and her world was about to be dismantled.

In the closing credits, the film talks about how many nuns walked away from the monasteries during the Vatican II changes. It was in excess of 90,000,  a huge number.

Dianna Agron as Sister Mary Grace was excellent as a nun that found she had to do something different. Nicholson was amazing as Cathleen’s mother. Her concern for her daughter’s welfare, especially as she lost weight, was perfect. Leo was sublime. She embodied the structure and closed mindedness of being a Reverend Mother who found her niche and didn’t have any other skills. Qualley was divine. She perfectly embodied the role of a young woman searching and believing she found her calling. Dayan was wonderful as the struggling nun, who really tried to push away her sexuality. Margaret Betts wrote and directed this film with a clear firm idea of what she wanted. I fully was transported in this film to another place, learned something and thought the storyline was excellent.

Overall: This fill will probably not be seen by a large number of people and it’s a shame because it is a really good film.

August: Osage County

First Hit:  Overly dramatic with dysfunctional characters and for a story that started as a black comedy it just stays black.

I’m not sure what it was I was supposed to see; a black comedy or drama. What I saw was a drama that was overly dramatic.

That the story, as presented, was not believable from the father dying (Why did he commit suicide?) to the newly discovered brother, it just seemed like a string of strong dramatic scenes. Violet, the mother, (Meryl Streep), and her three daughters Barbara (Julia Roberts), Ivy (Julianne Nicholson) and Karen (Juliette Lewis) are all together to honor Violet’s husband Beverly (Sam Shepard) who committed suicide.

The dinner with other relatives meeting at the house after the funeral is the time that is suppose to set up everything else in the film, but the way Violet and Barbara dominate the scenes it loses momentum. One character that seemed to find the right tone was Lewis as Karen the youngest daughter. Her looseness, attitude, and philosophy seemed to “get” the black comedy part of the script. Did I feel sad for Ivy? Yes, I thought her predicament of being the “one” who lived closest to her mom and having to be the go-to sister was difficult enough but then the information that her love was misplaced added to this tragic character. From the character standpoint I like her the best.

Streep, seemed to want to play this character as dark as possible with little thought towards seeing anyone else but herself. Just a glimpse of seeing would have helped the film. Her role seemed overly self-indulgent both character wise and story wise. Roberts was good and I enjoyed watching her, but it seemed she was taking Streep’s lead and over darkening her character. Nicholson, was someone the audience could actually care about and I liked her involvement. Lewis was both dark and funny. She was one of the best parts of this film. Margo Martindale playing Mattie Fae Aiken (Sister-in-law to Violet) was another role that seemed to overstep the bounds of the character. I could see her delivering what the director wanted and enjoying it, but…. Shepard was good in his very limited role but there wasn’t a reason for his actions. Tracy Letts wrote both the screenplay and play so there wasn’t a reason why it work from a scripting point of view. Therefore, it was the direction by John Wells that moved this film this way – poorly.

Overall:  Not a film I could recommend – it was forgotten the very next day.