Christy Review

Christy Martin is seen as one of the first successful female boxers, and her life and career are explored in the biopic Christy.

In 1989, Christy Salter (Sydney Sweeney) discovers she has a boxing talent. She gets noticed by a promoter in Tennessee and is put into contact with a trainer, James V. Martin (Ben Foster), or Jim for short. Christy rises up the ranks to become one of the first high-profile female boxers, but also gets trapped in an abusive marriage with Jim.

Christy was a film with award ambitions. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, directed by David Michôd, the director of Animal Kingdom, and distributed by Black Bear, which has released films like Dumb Money, Sing Sing, and Conclave. It ticked a lot of Oscar-bait boxes since it was a boxing film that looked at domestic violence, the treatment of women, and homosexuality in socially conservative areas of America. However, these ambitions are unlikely to get much awards attention because the reviews have been mixed, and it was a box office bomb in America.

Christy was a passion project for Sydney Sweeney. She acted as a producer as well as starring in the film. Sweeney has box office success with films like Anyone But You and Immaculate, and with Christy, she was looking to get an Oscar nomination. She committed to the role and trained for the role, putting on 30 pounds of muscle in the process. Sweeney had a juicy role since Christy was talented in the ring, acted as an antagonist before her fights, was a victim of psychological manipulation, and was in the closet. Sweeney gave an excellent performance, but it’s unlikely she will get many award recognitions.

Christy did have a talented cast who gave excellent performances. Ben Foster was unrecognisable as a balding middle-aged man with a dad bod and double chin. He was a horrible character from his first appearance. Jim’s controlling behaviour crept in, starting with telling Christy what to eat and saying she should have long hair. He was someone who wanted to use Christy as his meal ticket. Whilst Jim was abusive to his wife, he was shown to be a weak and pathetic man when he got called out by other men, especially Don King (Chad L. Coleman), who embarrassed and belittled the trainer.

Merritt Wever as Christy’s mother, Joyce, was also great at playing a toxic presence. She was a homophobe who clashed with her daughter over rumours that Christy was dating another woman. Joyce was a terrible mother who tried to dominate her daughter, had a terrible sense of timing, and dismissed her daughter’s cry for help. Joyce was manipulated by Jim, but she was also neglectful and will challenge Lucy Liu’s character in Presence as the worst movie mum of 2025.

Christy did get some support from other women. Most notable was a boxing rival, Lisa Holewyne, played by Katy O’Brian. It was great to see O’Brian in a more substantive role, having been underserved in action films like Twisters, Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning, and The Running Man. Holewyne was shown to be the bigger person, literally and figuratively, considering how Christy had treated her rival in the past. Another major supportive character was Big Jeff (Bryan Hibbard), a member of Christy’s support team who showed discomfort over how Jim treated his wife.

The mix of personal drama and Christy’s years-long boxing career made Christy closer to films like Raging Bull and The Fighter than a Rocky film. It covered Christy’s rise as she dominated the competition and lifted herself out of poverty. The film took place from 1989 to 2010. It was a film of two halves since the first half focused on Christy’s boxing career, and the second was more about her decline and the domestic abuse. This made it more like Raging Bull, which went from Jake LaMotta’s heights as a boxer to an overweight has-been.

The boxing sequences were well done. The filmmakers did get up close to the action, which made the fights feel, for lack of a better term, hard-hitting. It was a shame that Christy was such a skilled boxer because her fights were mostly one-sided affairs. A similar issue to what happened in Million Dollar Baby. The best and longest fight was when Christy had to fight the legendary Laila Ali (Naomi Graham).

When the relationship turned violent, Michôd wisely did not show the abuse. It was left to the imagination, especially during the final act. However, the film did lack subtlety. Jim was an arsehole get-go: Christy and her dog realised this, but Joyce talked the boxer into giving the trainer a chance. Jim had no sense of charm that would have made it believable that he could have won over Christy as a partner, even if she was using him as a beard.

Christy won’t match the heights of films like Rocky, Raging Bull, or Cinderella Man, but it can give people a boxing fix. Hopefully, it will find an audience upon its home release and international release.