I, Tonya

It's a good time for movies. A few really good ones - like The Shape of Water - but also some weird surprises, of things that might have been tacky but weren't. film Stars don't Die in Liverpool, The Battle of the Sexes, and now I Tonya, the potentially depressing story of a tough, working class kid who happened to be brilliant at skating - despite failing to fit into the prescribed categories for girl skaters - petite, demure, styling and obedient. In one sense it doesn't help that her mum is a ruthless tyrant, though her mum - a brilliant Alison Janney - might well argue that it's that that got her through. early family life is bad, marriage is eventually much worse, and the trail of misfortune, from her no-good husband to his deluded friend, who hires incompetent hitmen to break the leg of Tonya's biggest rival...If anything could go wrong, it did. But the film is a marvel of honesty and commitment - good actors making tough choices and completely convincing me, at any rate, of the reality of what I'm watching. Margot Robbie probably won't get an Oscar, but I'd be delighted to be proved wrong.