Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for NEON

By Kristi Turnquist | The Oregonian/OregonLive

The movie, "I, Tonya," begins with the onscreen message that the film is based on interviews with the real Tonya Harding and her ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly. The conflicting accounts from the Portland-born skating champ-turned tabloid target and associates caught up in the scheme to attack Harding's skating rival, Nancy Kerrigan, are part of the narrative.

Harding (played by Margot Robbie), claims one thing. Her mother, LaVona Golden (Allison Janney), claims another. Gillooly (Sebastian Stan) weighs in with his version of events, and so on.

In screenwriter Steven Rogers and director Craig Gillespie’s hands, everyone involved frames events to make themselves look good – or at least less bad.

The truth? That remains elusive. As Harding herself says in “I, Tonya,” “The haters always say, ‘Tonya, tell the truth.’” But, Harding goes on, “There’s no such thing as truth,” because “everyone has their own truth.”

Harding’s skating career, her triumphs and setbacks, the assault on Kerrigan, the drama on the ice during the 1994 Winter Olympics in Norway, and the consequences Harding faced after she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to hinder prosecution were all covered extensively by The Oregonian, and national media.

Many facts aren’t in dispute, though the nagging question of how much Harding knew about the attack on Kerrigan remains a point of contention, as Harding (pictured above with Robbie at the Los Angeles premiere of "I, Tonya") has repeatedly denied prior knowledge of the fiasco.

Don't Edit

The Oregonian/file/1991

“I, Tonya” provides its own spin on the much-told saga of Harding, creating a tone that wavers – and sometimes wobbles – between dark humor and drama. The film has been praised for its performances, but also criticized for seeming to treat physical abuse we see Harding suffer at the hands of her mother and Gillooly as more comic than tragic.

What’s most striking about “I, Tonya” is the effort to underscore how the odds were stacked against Harding from the start. Born poor, and with a build that was more athletic than graceful, Harding managed to rise above obstacles, using her strength and power to make history as the first U.S. woman to land a triple axel, in February 1991.

Don't Edit

The Oregonian/file

But Harding’s triumphs were hopelessly tangled with her personal struggles, her mistakes, and the presence in her life of people who were bad influences, to put it mildly.

"I, Tonya" at times echoes the excellent 2014 documentary, "The Price of Gold." In the film, made for ESPN's "30 for 30" series, Harding is interviewed, and comes off as both sympathetic and inclined to portray herself as a victim.

For those of us in Portland, “I, Tonya” is especially interesting, since the Harding saga played out in and around Multnomah and Clackamas counties, from shopping mall ice rinks to courthouses.

Here are six more things to know about the movie, which is generating Oscar buzz and has already earned Golden Globe nominations as best motion picture/musical or comedy, and for stars Robbie and Janney.

Don't Edit

Margot Robbie is a believable Tonya

Considering that Robbie, best known for playing Harley Quinn in “Suicide Squad,” is Australian, long-limbed where Harding was stocky, and elegant where Harding was gritty, the star acquits herself surprisingly well. Before making “I, Tonya,” Robbie didn’t know who Harding was. But Robbie, who’s also a producer on the film, set about researching Harding, and practicing ice skating. In the film, Robbie nails the role, capturing Harding’s ambition, as well as her more self-destructive side.

In the contemporary interview segments, Robbie is outfitted with some prosthetics, Vanity Fair reported, to make her look like a 44-year-old Harding. And to pull off the skating scenes, in which Harding does her historic triple axel, visual effects helped create the illusion that Robbie was performing the jumps, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Don't Edit

The Oregonian/file

The entire cast is great

Allison Janney is amazingly versatile, with memorable roles in “The West Wing,” “Masters of Sex,” “Mom,” and more. But her transformation into Harding’s mother, LaVona, is eerily convincing. The movie makes LaVona into an abusive, cruel mother (a characterization the real LaVona, pictured in a 1994 photo with Harding, reportedly disputes). Janney goes all in, never shrinking away from a character seen in contemporary interview scenes as a hard-bitten, cold-eyed survivor with a parakeet on her shoulder.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Photo courtesy of NEON via AP

As Jeff Gillooly (who later changed his name to Jeff Stone), Sebastian Stan (best known as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier in Marvel movies) is also uncanny. Whether sporting the notorious Gillooly mustache in the ‘90s scenes, or appearing in the contemporary interview segments, Stan portrays Gillooly as a guy who reflects on the fact that “at 27, I was the most hated man in America,” but who still insists he only meant to scare Kerrigan with some anonymous mailed threats, not a knee-whacking.

Don't Edit

The Oregonian/file

Shawn Eckardt comes off as a comic figure

In “I, Tonya,” Gillooly keeps claiming that he only meant to send Kerrigan threatening mail, and that his friend, Shawn Eckardt, was the one behind “the incident,” as they all call it. Eckardt, Harding’s supposed bodyguard, arranges for two of his friends, Shane M. Stant and Derrick B. Smith, to travel to Detroit in 1994, where Kerrigan is practicing. Stant strikes Kerrigan on her right knee with a metal baton after Kerrigan’s skating practice. In real life, Eckardt confessed to the FBI and implicated Stant, Smith, Gillooly and Harding. In the movie, Eckardt (played by Paul Walter Hauser) is treated as a comic figure, who lives with his parents and has delusions of a career in international espionage.

In real life, Eckardt (pictured with Harding, in 1994) pled guilty to racketeering, and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. (Smith and Stant pled guilty to conspiracy to commit second-degree assault, and were given 18-month prison sentences. Gillooly pled guilty to racketeering in exchange for a 24-month sentence, and a $100,000 fine.) Eckardt was released from the Oregon State Penitentiary 109 days early, and died in December 2007 at age 40, after changing his name to Brian Sean Griffith.

Don't Edit

Photo courtesy of NEON via AP

"I, Tonya" misses that Oregon feeling

Though there are ample scenes supposedly set at Lloyd Center (where Harding skated on the ice rink as a child), Clackamas Town Center (Harding practiced on the rink at the mall as an adult), and the Portland area, “I, Tonya” was actually filmed in Atlanta, Georgia.

Sharp-eyed locals may notice the exteriors don’t have the look of the Pacific Northwest, but the average viewer wouldn’t know the difference. And in scenes featuring Harding being besieged by waves of reporters, we see a TV news van that says “KDKP Portland.” Huh?

Don't Edit

Photo courtesy of NBC

Retro media moments

In the “how times change” category, we also see genuine archive footage from the national media’s frenzied coverage of the Harding-Kerrigan scandal. Clips include Connie Chung, former Oregonian Ann Curry, and former “Today” show anchor Matt Lauer, who now has his own “disgraced” tag, in the wake of NBC News firing him on the grounds of sexual misconduct in the workplace.

Don't Edit

Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images

What does the real Tonya Harding think of "I, Tonya"?

One of the onscreen cards at the end of the movie, providing details on what happened to major protagonists, says that Harding now lives with her husband and young son, and she works as a landscaper, house painter and deck builder. She wants people to know she’s a good mother. (Harding is pictured with her husband, Joseph Jens Price, at the "I, Tonya" Los Angeles premiere on Dec. 5.)

Certainly, “I, Tonya” generally presents Harding as a sympathetic figure who never could fit into the snobby world of figure skating. In one of the contemporary interview scenes, Harding looks at the camera – at us watching – and says she thought being famous was going to be fun. “I was loved for a minute, then I was hated, then I was just a punchline,” she says. Being mocked and hounded by paparazzi, she suggests, is like being abused all over again. “You’re all my attackers,” she says.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Rich Fury/Getty Images

In a heartbreaking courtroom scene, after Harding has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to hinder prosecution, she begs not be banned from skating and membership in the U.S. Figure Skating Association. The others got jail time, Harding says, but when she’s banned from professional skating, “It’s like you’re giving me a lifetime sentence,” adding she’s no one if she can’t skate. (Pictured, left to right, Sebastian Stan, Craig Gillespie, Allison Janney, Steven Rogers, Bryan Unkeless, Tonya Harding, Ricky Russert and Margot Robbie at the after-party for the premiere of "I, Tonya," on Dec. 5 in Los Angeles.)

Don't Edit

Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images

In a Hollywood Reporter piece on "I, Tonya," the reporter says that Harding now lives in Sisters, Oregon. A January Portland Monthly story, however, says Harding lives in Washington, "about an hour from Portland."

Robbie is quoted in the Hollywood Reporter as saying that after Harding saw the completed movie, "There were a few things she didn't agree with because obviously there's Jeff's point of view in there," adding, "but for the most part she said we did a good job."

Harding, 47, joined Robbie on the red carpet the Los Angeles premiere of “I, Tonya.” People magazine reports that after the movie screened, Harding appeared onstage and was given a standing ovation by the audience.

"I, Tonya" is playing, at this writing, at Regal Lloyd Center 10, Regal Fox Tower Stadium 10, and Regal Bridgeport Village Stadium 18, and is scheduled to expand to more theaters and more showtimes on Jan. 5.

Don't Edit

The Oregonian/file

More on Tonya Harding

Here's our look at what we knew about "I, Tonya" before we saw it, and background on the real events surrounding Tonya Harding, Jeff Gillooly, Nancy Kerrigan and a skating scandal that rocked the world. (Pictured, Harding's longtime coach, Diane Rawlinson, and a young Harding, in an Oregonian photo taken in 1987.)

Don't Edit

Associated Press/file

Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan 20 years later: The highlights in a timeline

Here is a complete timeline for the saga of Tonya Harding and the attack on Nancy Kerrigan, which became a tabloid sensation in 1994. (Pictured, Harding and Kerrigan at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Orlando, Florida, in 1992.)

Don't Edit

The Oregonian/file

The Oregonian/OregonLive coverage of Tonya Harding

Here are more stories from The Oregonian/OregonLive on Tonya Harding.

Don't Edit