Free Skate (2023)
Directed by Roope Elenius
Written by Veera W. Vilo
Starring Veera W. Vilo, Leena Uotila, Karolina Blackburn
Release Date January 27th, 2023
Published January 27th, 2023
Free Skate boldly and starkly explores the abuses of the Russian sports infrastructure in damning and artful fashion. Veera W. Vilo plays an unnamed figure skater who is discovered lying unconscious in a Finnish roadway at the start of the film. From there, the movie jarringly shifts back and forth in time. In one timeline, we see the figure skater living in Finland with her loving grandmother and being part of a loving and caring team with her new figure skating coaches and trainers.
In a timeline another timeline, our vulnerable, shy, and achingly sad figure skater is coming up the ranks of Russian figure skating. Her relationship with her coaches and trainers is antagonistic and cruel. The Russian approach to training is not what anyone would call nurturing. Rather, it involves terrifying the skaters into on ice perfection that is unattainable. Skaters who don't show enough improvement are punished by being forced to stand outside in a dangerously cold Russian winter in little more than a leotard.
Success and improvement however, may be even worse than the tortured failure. As our figure skater protagonist becomes a figure skating star, she becomes the object of the Russian oligarchs who fund the Russian figure skating team. You can imagine, this funding for figure skating comes with a cost and that cost is paid not by the Russian government, the trainers or the coaches, it's paid by the skaters who are tasked with doing whatever it takes to secure further funding for the figure skating team. Free Skate is unflinching in showing you exactly the price that is paid.
Cut back to Finland and our shy, sad, figure skater, haunted by her past, thrives under the more caring and nurturing environment of Finland but also lives in fear of her past. One of her trainers in Russia who did little to protect her from the horrific abuse of other coaches and the rich creeps who funded the skating team, was her own father, a man she now fears seeing anywhere she goes. The threat of being sent back to Russia hangs over the head of our figure skater as she makes a move to expose the horrors she experienced under the Russian regime.
Free Skate doesn't claim to be based on a true story. That said, rumors about the horrors of being a Russian athlete date as far back as pre-World War 2. The Cold War ramped up the mistreatment of Russian athletes who were tortured and threatened with death if they did not achieve to a level that reflected well on the Russian leadership. Thus, it is not a major reach on the part of the makers of Free Skate to draft a story that focuses on athletes being violently, sexually and mentally abused. And yet, it's still shocking and appalling when you are forced to confront it as boldly as it is presented in Free Skate.
Find my full length review at Geeks.Media linked here.
