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Directed by Craig Gillespie and written by Steven Rogers, the film introduces us to the life and sporting career of American figure skater Tonya Harding. Coming from a poor and socially problematic background, she was never popular with the mainstream of the sport she practiced, but she would have been just a rebel if she hadn't ended up implicated in the attack against Nancy Kerrigan, one of her competitors. In 1994, during preparations for the Winter Olympics, Kerrigan was hit in the knee with great force. Investigations quickly led to Harding's husband, who was eventually irradiated and barred from competing in skating events.

At first glance, the film seems like an attempt to excuse Harding, to make us believe that she only allowed this to happen to another skater because she was a woman affected by years of violence and abuse, at the hands of her mother and her husband. The film really sells this idea well, and viewers are invited to see Harding as an abused woman who had no alternative but to behave this way. Personally, I don't buy that explanation. It is overly simplistic, as if all people who have suffered the same thing automatically become like Harding, willing to do anything to win, even illegal means. Despite this, I must highlight the intensity and authenticity of the recreation of the physical and psychological abuse suffered by the skater: these are the most poignant moments of the film and manage to be truly distressing.

On a technical level, the highlight goes to the good direction and elaborate cinematography. I liked the documentary-style approach to the characters' testimonies. The only thing that bothered me about the film, on a more technical level, was its overall conception as a comedy. It doesn't seem like a light enough subject to induce laughter, especially because the scenes of abuse, which many people probably laughed at, are authentic enough for us to believe that she not only suffered those abuses but also to remind us that this is the painful reality of many (too many) women, children and, also, men. It's something that completely takes away my desire to laugh. The skating scenes were also done with great elegance and technical care.

Finally, we need to talk about the actors, and we have here a luxurious cast that gives no one reason to complain. The star is, without a doubt, the young and beautiful Margot Robbie. She has established herself in recent years as a rising star with remarkable talent and a great capacity for work. And this film contributed a lot to consolidating the Australian actress's upward trajectory: she steals attention whenever she appears, manages to give the character all the strength, aggressiveness and fragility that she demands of him, and collaborates well with Sebastian Stan, with whom she plays the romantic partner. The actor, in turn, gives us his best work in several years. Allison Janney is unrecognizable as Harding's grotesque mother, and rightly deserved the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress that she won for this role.

I saw this movie last night and I had very low expectations... maybe that's why I somehow felt that it wasn't as bad as I imagined it would be. It's not a good movie, but compared to some hilarious horror films I've seen, I think it at least manages to give us a story with a decent beginning, middle and end, a series of scares that, while not working as such, leave us minimally interested in what we're seeing, two likable central characters with whom we can connect and a functional suspense.

The plot begins with two college girls renting a vintage apartment from a grumpy and unfriendly landlord. Even though I think that an apartment like this would not be to the taste of the overwhelming majority of young people, I know how difficult it is to find accommodation when you study far away and how inflated the prices can be, so I gave credit to the premise. One of the young women has a troubled history of depression and appears to have self-destructive tendencies. The mysterious house will accentuate this, and suddenly we have the young woman in convulsive crises worthy of "The Exorcist", and the rented companion on the verge of a nervous breakdown as she begins to suspect something strange in the apartment.

As you can see from this description, the film doesn't bring us anything that hasn't already been done, much better, in other productions. There are a lot of genre clichés, the fear doesn't work well, it's not a film that scares you, but at least it manages to be interesting and atmospheric enough not to become boring. The romantic subplots and characters are much less interesting and so underdeveloped that they could easily have been cut altogether. I think director Ben Jagger only included them to reinforce the heterosexuality of the two characters, preventing us from thinking that they are a couple. The cinematography contributes greatly to making the apartment, carefully designed and decorated, an oppressive and even claustrophobic place. Candles and no light are common tricks, but they work. The second part of the film is a bit more dynamic, and there is no doubt that the first part could have been shortened in the editing room. It still features some graphic deaths that aren't overly gory.

Overall, I have little to say about the cast or their quality. Without any big names, the cast is led by Francesca Xuereb and Viktoria Vinyarska. They are pretty and young enough to bring the characters to life, even though Vinyarska is visibly older than her co-star. Neither of them gives us a masterful acting job, but both manage to establish a happy partnership and give what it takes to make their characters likable and sympathetic in the eyes of the audience. The rest of the cast is made up of even weaker actors, who only deserve enough attention for what the film wants to get out of them.

As a Portuguese and as a Catholic, I feel comfortable talking about the apparitions of Mary in the small Portuguese town of Fátima. They happened in 1917 and, in a matter of a few months, led to great national commotion, as significant as the fact that it occurred at a delicate moment in the country's life. The young Portuguese Republic experienced a harsh anticlericalism politically sanctioned by the republican political leadership; Furthermore, the message of peace announced was also deeply relevant to a country that was sending thousands of young men to the First World War. Despite this, the Catholic Church did not want to compromise and only later sanctioned the phenomenon, partly driven by overwhelming popular support and the restoration of close relations with the country's secular rulers embodied by António de Oliveira Salazar.

Thus, Fátima has been linked to the history of Portugal and to profound political and social changes in the country, reasons enough for many people to question what was truly seen by the little shepherds. Another controversial aspect involving Fatima is the secrets they would have heard from Jesus' mother and which would be the real existence of Hell, the imminent end of the First World War, but the occurrence of an even worse one if Russia insisted on affronting the Christian faith, and the prediction of the attack against Pope John Paul II in 1981. It is not up to me to say what is true. As a Catholic, I have my faith and, as a cold analyst, I am the first to say that Fatima does not have a simple logical explanation.

The film narrates the events as a film that would be about to be prepared by a Spanish team. However, the narrative seeks, through the coincidence of several world events, to provide a basis for what was said in Fátima, so that the film can be a little preachy, as if we were listening to a priest at Sunday mass. Furthermore, director Andres Garrigó is known for films with religious content and strong proselytism, so it's not a real surprise. Most of the actors are weak and don't deserve much attention or honorable mention. Essentially, the film is a piece of good Catholic propaganda, which will please the most faithful and alienate those who want neutral content.