Sweeney, Foster deliver knockout performances in affecting boxing biopic
If you’re not a boxing fan, you may not have heard of Christy Martin, a super welterweight champion of women’s professional boxing. Netflix covered her personal and professional life story in its excellent sports documentary series Untold back in 2021’s “Deal with the Devil” episode, and Hollywood obviously found the material worthy of dramatic spin. Hence the release of Christy today, with actress Sydney Sweeney portraying the resilient boxing champ in an absorbing and well-acted biopic.
An underdog story in the truest sense of the word, Christy will appeal to audiences who love a gripping overcoming-the-odds tale of grit and determination. Raised in rural West Virginia, Christy is high school basketball player with an aptitude for boxing. She’s also a lesbian, a fact that her mother Joyce (Merritt Wever), steeped in the conservatism of her 1980s coal mining community, refuses to accept. Christy sees a way out of her small-town confinement when boxing manager Jim Martin (Ben Foster) takes her on as a client. Despite their 25 year age difference, Christy also agrees to marry Jim, hoping to quell rumors about her sexuality that threaten her blossoming career.
Australian director David Michôd, who co-wrote the script with his wife Mirrah Foulkes and fellow screenwriter Katherine Fugate, gives Sweeney (White Lotus; Anyone But You; Eden) her best role in years, and she more than rises to the challenge. Her scenes with Foster, as the increasingly jealous, manipulative, and emotionally and physically abusive Jim, are raw, emotionally true, and not always easy to watch. But, without giving any spoilers, in case you aren’t familiar with her actual story, what happens to Christy is brutal, devastating, and almost unbelievable. The film excels at unflinchingly portraying both the extreme ups of Christy’s boxing career and the heartbreaking downs of her life outside the ring.
The film of course does take some liberties with some of the realities of Christy’s biography. Her high school girlfriend is fictionalized, and many elements of her career and marriage to Jim are compressed. But since a documentary already exists, the dramatic license taken here justifiably serves to amplify the most notable and striking parts of Christy’s remarkable story.
Sweeney and Foster are both bound to be awards contenders, and Wever may earn a supporting nod or two for her thankless but difficult role as a homophobic mother. Fans of last year’s Kristen Stewart movie Love Lies Bleeding will also delight in seeing Katy O’Brian on screen again here, playing Lisa Holewyne, a fellow boxer, former rival, and eventual friend and more to Christy. And kudos to the film’s costuming and hair styling teams–and to Sweeney, who sheds all vanity to embrace a series of ‘80s and ‘90s bad perms, mullets, and ill fitting, off-the-rack clothes that definitely create a vivid time and place.
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Christy is now playing in theaters, including at the AMC Metreon in San Francisco, the AMC Bay Street in Emeryville, and the Cinemark Century in Walnut Creek.
