When it comes to biographies, whether it is books or film and television dramas, most of them convey the idea of positive energy: hard work will succeed.
But the movie we're going to talk about today, "I, Queen of Patterns," does the opposite, it directly knocks over the chicken soup in our hands, telling us with the tragic life of a superstar that reality is so bone-chilling, and fate is hard to break free.
However, is this movie really only "mourning"? What exactly is it trying to tell us?
Directed by Craig Gillespe and starring Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stein and others in the "2017 Top 100 Global Figures", the biopic was officially released in the United States on December 8, 2017.
The film is adapted from the famous "figure skating scandal" in the United States, the film is full of black comedy, the current Douban score is as high as 8 points, and it also won the Best Supporting Actress Award at the 90th Academy Awards.
Margot Robbie, who played the heroine of Tonya Harding, was also nominated for Best Actress at the 90th Academy Awards for this film.
The film's prototype, Tonya Harding, was once known as America's most talented figure skater, and she won the American figure skating competition as early as the age of 19. Although she came from a humble background, she won countless championships with her hard work.
But such a genius, who should have been shining in the spotlight and dancing on the ice in the spotlight, was caught in a scandal in the American sports world in 1994 - the murder and injury of Tonya Harding. As a result, she was banned for life and lost her love.
At the beginning of the film, we are given three words: never ironic, very contradictory, completely true. In fact, it is also telling the audience that its content is not to satirize anything, it wants to tell, just a "truth".
The heroine, Tonya Harding, was born in a low-class family in Oregon, her father repairs cars and hunts on weekdays, and her mother is a waitress, who smokes and does not leave her mouth, and is fierce, followed by six or seven husbands, and Tonya is the child born to her and her fourth husband.
In the United States, white people with such a family background are insultingly called "White Trash," and from an early age, Tonya and her mother struggled to survive in the eyes of social disdain.
Tonya's mother was a fierce woman, and she refused to accept that her life was spent in such a mediocre way, so she placed all her hopes on her young daughter, who advocated stick education and disciplined her daughter without mercy.
In this way, in the eyes of Tonya, who is still a child, the world is only left with violence, winning and losing... And there is no warmth alone.
When Tonya was three years old, her mother discovered her talent for skating, and her mother ignored Tonya's young age and whether the coach accepted her, and a dirty sentence burst out with the smoke that came out, the meaning was very clear: him, let me slide.
Tonya did not disappoint her mother. Six months later, at the age of four, Tonya won her first title among the children older than her.
In the following years, in order to make her daughter good enough, the mother was extreme and unscrupulous, and she scolded her daughter in various ways at every turn, and she was never satisfied with her performance.
When Tonya wanted to make friends with other friends on the field, her mother stood on the outside and said coldly, "She is your enemy, you are not here to make friends." Little Tonya bit his lip and silently left his friend.
Even if Tonya wanted to urinate during training, her mother would not allow it; Tonya did not hold back on the field to pee out, and all she heard her mother said was: continue to slide wet.
Talent, hard work, he has it, but that's not enough. As "an elegant sporting skill that only the upper class can enjoy", figure skating requires athletes to have expensive clothing and equipment, and a dedicated training ground, but these Tonya are all remarkable.
The figure skating association required every athlete to have an expensive fur that the Tonya family could not afford, so her father made Tonya a shoddy fur jacket from the fur of his hunting prey.
In the face of everyone's ridicule, little Tonya walked calmly in the middle of the road, disdainfully giving everyone a middle finger—just as her mother had taught her before, and spit into his milk to see who was not pleasing to the eye. Who dares to bully you, take revenge back fiercely, and don't let others look down on you.
Under her mother's twisted education, Tonya grew into a very good figure skater, but at the same time, she also grew into a rough and tough woman. And the shadow of that childhood, deeply buried in the depths of her subconscious, made her fate develop in an uncontrollable direction.
At the age of 15, Tonya dropped out of school to practice figure skating full-time. At that time, she had short hair, a poor skating suit, braces, and was cold and unapproachable.
However, her graceful and confident posture on the field attracted a man named Jeff. Jeff is also a poor man, idle, as a jerk he is naturally handy to pick up his sister, not to mention the object is Tonya, who has always been desperate for warmth.
Jeff was the first person in Tonya's life to praise her beauty and how she skated like she had superpowers. When he heard Jeff say these words to her, Tonya, who had always been strong and violent, felt like a feather was gently brushed by a feather, and the long-frozen heart pool finally cracked a crack.
Later, Tonya defied her mother's objections and began to associate with Jeff. At first, Jeff was very gentle with Tonya, but the good times were short-lived, and after a few months, Jeff began to use violence against Tonya, slapping Tonya on the head without saying a word, and even beating Tonya more than once.
But Tonya inherited her mother's character, and she was not weak, and she fought back many times. Originally, everyone thought that such a relationship must not last, right?
But we thought wrong again, Jeff, a man, launched a rush to six relatives do not recognize, and afterwards to Tonya all kinds of confessions, please, in the face of such Jeff, Tonya although helpless, but also by Jeff to death, can not break up.
In Tonya's view, the scolding of her is also a manifestation of her good. They spent it in scolding and reconciling.
In one of her mother's scoldings, her mother threw a knife directly at her. Tonya couldn't take it anymore, and she glanced at her mother and left the nightmarish home without hesitation. Subsequently, she married Jeff.
At the wedding, Tonya was full of smiles, she got rid of her mother, she felt that she would be very happy in the future. When her mother taunted her again at the wedding, she just smiled wordlessly and did not fight back, leaving her mother alone to stand awkwardly in place.
After marriage, Tonya was able to concentrate on skating. But the first few times she had inexplicably scored low. She angrily went to the judges and got the answers "Because your image is not good" and "Maybe you should try a different sport" caused her to burst out a foul sentence directly on the field.
She loves skating and will never give up.
After changing coaches, Tonya decided to complete the "Axel Three-and-a-Half Week Jump" in a big competition, blinding everyone's eyes. In the eyes of everyone on the field, Tonya jumped out of the last three-and-a-half weeks in mid-air, and with a perfect landing action, she was also sealed at that moment.
At this time, she is the queen in the flash of the arena and the admiring eyes of everyone.
However, this jump also made her "inflated". She always unconsciously faced her husband with an inferior posture, and later even took the initiative to divorce Jeff, indulging in fun and neglecting training.
Later, the coach who grew up watching her find Tonya, who was a waiter, and Tonya woke up and trained seriously to compete. However, due to her bad origins and failed marriage, she has never been able to get good results.
In order to give herself an image of national favor, Tonya had to reconcile with her abusive husband.
On the eve of a world-class alternative, Tonya received a threatening letter that "if you continue to skate, you will eat bullets". Looking at Tonya, who had lost one after another because of fear, Jeff secretly hired someone to give Tonya's rival Nancy a little color.
Who knew that this Sean hired by Jeff directly broke Nancy's knee. After an investigation, the police identified the people behind it, Tonya and Jeff. Tonya only agreed to Jeff writing a threatening letter to Nancy, completely unaware of Sean's outrageous behavior.
However, most people do not want the truth, but only pick the "facts" that meet their own tastes to listen. As Tonya said, "Those who hate me always say, Tonya, tell the truth." But there is no truth, everyone has their own truth. ”
Yes, the truth is bloody.
Because of this incident, Tonya was sentenced to a lifetime ban, and she was labeled a "bad woman" by everyone.
In court, Tonya cried out: If I can't skate, I'm nothing.
Her dream came to an abrupt end at the age of 24.
That's the end of the story. But we need to think about the question: was Tonya's tragedy herself caused, or who gave it?
There's nothing inherently wrong with loving and insisting on pursuing something. But the reality is often like this, and the final result has actually been decided by countless moments before.
As one judge put it, "It's never just about skating itself." "Even if you are talented, hard enough, and seize certain opportunities, the objective factors in the environment will always inadvertently give you the most fatal blow and make you never stand up again."
But have we just confessed our fate? Right or wrong, whether it is Tonya or Tonya's mother, they all have a strength to never accept defeat, and their "toughness" is not so much a character as a spirit of resistance emanating from the inside out.
Even if I am not welcomed by the world, even if everyone and everything is stopping me from moving forward, I will not give up. Even if I knew that I might never be able to defeat those who were much higher than me from birth.
You and I share the same encouragement: even if we can't choose our destiny, we can choose what kind of person we want to be.
Editorial Department/Tang Jiu