I, Tonya begins with a disclosure. It is, according to text that appears onscreen, based on irony-free, wildly contradictory, totally true interviews with Tonya Harding and Jeff Gillooly, the former a disgraced Olympic figure skater and the latter her ex-husband.

The disclaimer itself is a contradiction. Most biopics, which purport to tell real stories about real people, follow a similar formula. Whether cradle-to-grave profiles or snapshots of one critical moment, they usually take a grand, sweeping view. The acting is mannered and transparent, the stories are familiar and firm in their conclusions, and many attempt to link historical moments with present-day analogs. I, Tonya certainly belongs to the biopic genre, but nothing about it is formulaic. Almost everything that happens in the movie is at once fact and fiction.

For those who devoured the Harding soap opera in the 90s, rest assured its signature plotlines are the centerpiece of I, Tonya. Her rival, Nancy Kerrigan, is the wholesome all-American girl. Harding is the inelegant outsider whose success stems largely from her own grit. On her path to Olympic glory, she goes from scrappy redneck to improbable media princess. Anyone who loves an underdog roots for Tonya Harding.

The movie, which opened in limited release last weekend, leans into its heroines pursuit of the American dream. As implied in the opening confession, it also embraces the idea that we will never know just how much Harding knew about the scheme to injure Kerrigan backstage at the 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, where Kerrigan was seen wailing Why? after a bodyguard hired by Gillooly struck her legs.