‘Christy’ Review: Sydney Sweeney Fights for Respect in a Tough, Unsentimental Boxing Biopic

Sydney Sweeney faces the same issue as many Hollywood actors who become famous more for their looks, off-screen behavior, and/or social media presence than for their talent: they tend to be dismissed or overlooked when they try to act in a more “serious” register. You can see it at recent awards ceremonies where—aside from a few exceptions—they’re often celebrated and talked up as contenders until they ultimately lose, as happened with Demi Moore or Pamela Anderson, to name just a couple. Sweeney’s case is somewhat similar, but even harsher. There seems to be a certain condescension toward her more “indie” work, as if people don’t quite believe in the effort behind it and see it merely as a calculated career move.

Maybe it is—who knows—but anyone who saw a film like Reality knows that Sweeney is talented, that she can act, that she’s more than the voluptuous persona built around her (and one she also capitalizes on). Christy was a major commercial flop and was completely ignored during last year’s awards season. And while I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a great injustice, the lack of attention it received is surprising, since within the conventions of the sports biopic it stands alongside many far more celebrated examples. Michôd’s film may not be great—it’s nowhere near Million Dollar Baby—but it remains an engaging, spare, and intense drama about one of the pioneers of women’s boxing and her complicated personal and professional life.

Boxing movies are a Hollywood staple, complete with their familiar subplots and structures. Christy belongs to the classic rise-and-fall model, though unlike many others, the harshest part of the story has less to do with the sport itself than with the world surrounding the protagonist. It’s a story that blends athletic achievement with feminist empowerment, centering on a woman who began to succeed in women’s boxing at a time when the sport wasn’t taken seriously at all, in the late 1980s. It also portrays a woman dealing with a difficult personal situation, unable—because of both family and social pressures—to come out, which ultimately leads her into a deeply troubled marriage with her trainer, Jim Martin (Ben Foster).

It all begins with the intense Christy Salters (who will later call herself Christy Martin), a basketball player whose temper leads her into a series of fights that push her to try her luck in the ring, eventually bringing her to Martin—a man initially unwilling to train a woman but who changes his mind after seeing her fight. Christy earns very little from her bouts until the famous promoter Don King (Chad L. Coleman) enters the picture and propels her into the spotlight: televised fights, bigger purses, and a level of fame that made her the leading figure and pioneer of the sport in the 1990s. That trajectory—with its inevitable setbacks—forms the film’s most conventional narrative thread.

Running parallel to it is another, beginning with her strained relationship with her parents (especially her harsh mother, played by Merritt Wever), who refuse to accept her as she is. Christy has a partner, Rosie (Jess Gabor)—a secret, though in a small West Virginia town everyone knows—and there’s no chance of acceptance. As she becomes more famous, she decides to completely conceal that part of her life and instead enters into a relationship with her trainer. At first, things seem to work, and she even adopts a more conventionally feminine appearance. But one look at Foster—an actor well versed in playing insidious, menacing figures—is enough to sense that trouble is inevitable. And that’s exactly what happens.

Christy can be divided into two clear halves, plus something like a coda. The first sets up the conflicts but unfolds as a story of struggle and personal triumph, almost like a female Rocky. But after a series of difficult sporting setbacks (including one especially grueling fight), things begin to unravel—not so much inside the ring as outside it, in her personal life, as Jim’s rigid control over her becomes suffocating and, above all, dangerous.

In that second half, the film loses some tension as it moves along a fairly predictable path, but the Australian director of Animal Kingdom and The Rover still manages to sustain a dry, sharp, abrasive tone, avoiding heavy-handed melodrama or the lurid excesses of gendered violence. The situation is already oppressive enough, and Michôd presents it with a certain distance, trusting its inherent impact without embellishment. That restraint is also evident in the performances. Though both actors are heavily made up—wigs, costumes, accents—it never tips into overacting. Quite the opposite.

That very austerity may be what kept Christy from earning nominations, box office success, or much critical recognition. It’s a film that lacks the sense of epic scale one expects from this kind of story, both in its triumphant highs and its darker moments. Michôd opts for a tougher, more direct register—more Australian, if you’ll allow the generalization—and while that works for the film, it may not align with the expectations of an American audience more accustomed to a certain grandiosity one way or the other. It’s a film that may not inspire strong passions or qualify as a hidden gem—it’s missing something, perhaps in the relationships, perhaps in the somewhat mechanical unfolding of events—but it’s more than solid, and it confirms that, given the right material, Sweeney can be much more than a media celebrity.