Directed By David Michod

Starring – Sydney Sweeney, Katy O’Brian, Ben Foster

The Plot – Christy Martin (Sweeney) never imagined life beyond her small-town roots in West Virginia, until she discovered a knack for punching people. Fueled by grit, raw determination, and an unshakeable desire to win, she charges into the world of professional boxing under the guidance of her trainer and husband, Jim (Foster). But while Christy flaunts a fiery in-ring persona, her toughest battles unfold outside of the ring, confronting family, identity, and a relationship that just might become life or death

Rated R for adult language, violence/bloody images, some drug use and sexual material.

CHRISTY | Official Trailer HD

POSITIVES

Plenty has been said about the level of dramatic depth that Sydney Sweeney has exerted towards captivating an audience, even against the tide of two supporting Emmy nominations, and while “Christy” represents the ability to transform audience outlook, both emotionally and physically, it also grants her the capability to lose herself in a prominent athlete in women’s sport, as a pioneer of the boxing industry. Sweeney’s turn as the titular Christy is nothing short of remarkable in the exploits in the duality of the character that Sweeney brings along so naturally, attaining effective impulses in commanding the character of the ring, full of exaggerated arrogance and limitless swagger, as well as the real person outside of the ring tasked with fighting some dark and harrowing wars of her own with everyone from a bigoted mother to a mentally and physically abusive husband. Sweeney not only maintains the control and emphasis in a Southern drawl throughout the consistency of her speech patterns, but also a remarkable level of commitment towards transforming her body into something resonating with an amateur athlete, and it’s a memorable turn that should put to rest any notion that this leading lady is merely just another pretty face to shallowly exploit for ogling attention. Aside from being a showcase for Sweeney, the film is also anchored by such an effectively detestable turn from Ben Foster, who as Christy’s husband manipulates and humiliates his significant other, seemingly every chance that he gets. Like Sweeney, Foster loses himself in the disparaging depths of the character, featuring a sliminess and snarling discontent that palpably influences the atmosphere within a room, any time he walks into it, and while Foster has made a career of bringing to life these polarizing larger than life characters, the detestable lengths he goes as Jim is very much his most morally irreprehensible, proving that the eclipsing work of a protagonist is only as good as the antagonist that continually drives them to dig deeper against their adversity. Speaking of adversity, the storytelling itself certainly succeeds as being a thorough biopic in the rise and fall of its heavy-handed athlete, even going as far as to follow a familiarized outline during its opening act, but it also serves as a noble outlook on the advances of women’s sports, over the last thirty years, specifically in Michod’s fearless approach to capture some unflattering and immoral aspects of Christy’s rise to prominence, without any innocent parties among its characters. While I appreciate any biopic that pledges honesty and transparency to the illustration of its lead, there’s a real determination to David’s directing that can force the audience down some truly dark and devastating corridors with the extent of its character journey, helping to fight back against some of the preconceived prejudices of most biopics feeling interchangeably stale creatively, all the while appraising insight into the uphill struggles that many females still unfortunately face today towards attaining equality with their male counterparts. For my money, the less you know about Christy’s journey heading into the movie, the better, as I found some moments downright shocking and even strangely inspiring with the level of resiliency that this woman has exerted throughout a life that hit twice as hard as anyone or anything that she ever faced in the ring, especially during a jaw-dropping climax around the movie’s final half hour, where all of these frightening tiers to Christy’s life really start to catch up to her in the most terrifying ways imaginable, forcing her to get back up each time it unrelentingly knocked her down. The production is mostly standard, with nothing standing out in terms of presentation, however there are some unsubtle uses in the overall costume design and wardrobe for the movie that effortlessly taps into its late-80’s and early 90’s timeframe, specifically the name brand threads conjured for Jim, which unintentionally or not brought laughter to my experience, every time I spotted the likeness of an outdated logo that matched him seamlessly to the kind of clientele that this brand utilized in their short-but-sturdy impact on the industry.

NEGATIVES

For a movie clocking in at an ambitiously advantageous 130-minute runtime, I’ve never felt so rushed throughout a film that involves so much in its screenplay, resulting in perilous pacing issues for the storytelling, which constantly feel like they’re trying to rush through some of the most vital moments in Christy’s foundation building life. This can be most consistently felt during the movie’s first half, in which years just casually shift directly in the middle of an unraveling narrative, and while I wholeheartedly understand that the movie depicts a lot of unique angles to the heftiness of its script, it rarely fleshes them out as anything nourishing to the audience, beyond just making the surface level observation, and it makes me wish that the script attempted a tauter story to the overall outline, even if that meant involving trimming some of the excessive and exploitive fat, that resulted in some of the movie’s most compelling moments. In addition to this, the action itself inside of the ring is certainly nothing special in the way it’s shot and executed, resulting in a complete absence of dramatic suspense, as a result of fights that are entirely one-sided. This is even the case for rare moments where Christy loses, in which an imposing adversary will continuously squash her like a grape, however even in dissecting the movie’s choreography, there’s very little about it that feels enticing or even realistic among fighters at Christy’s level, leaving me underwhelmed during the film’s most meaningful moments, even if the time away from the ring is truly what separates this story from so many other sports biopics of the age. Following on with my complaints towards the production, there’s nothing with the make-up and hairstyling that reflects the tangibility with the movie transitioning forward during its abrupt time shifts, leaving it a bit conflicting to contextualize just where the story is persisting from, at any given moment, especially considering none of its characters are aging accordingly along with it. While the film takes us through roughly twenty-one years in the life of Christy, it should certainly reflect Jim’s appearance, considering he’s an older gentleman when the two get together, however there’s nothing even remotely evident in the transpiring of his appearance to grasp this aspect, and it underutilizes the possibility for the make-up specifically to stand out towards awards-worthy prominence, especially considering one gruesome image during the aforementioned climax elicits the kind of wincing gore often reserved for horror movies.

OVERALL
“Christy” is a gut-wrenching biopic about game-changing athlete, Christy Martin, whose trials and tribulations inside of the ring as a generational marvel of the sport, pale in comparison to her frighteningly abusive captivity under the control of her manipulative husband out of it. Led by a career-best performance from Sydney Sweeney, as well as a fearless approach in direction from David Michod, the film persistently stays standing, even throughout some of the offensive onslaughts that it faces in rushed storytelling and unengaging fight sequences, maintaining appeal even as an initially telegraphed and eventually flabbergasted engagement, which saves its most devastating punches for the moments that define Christy resiliency.

My Grade: 6.7 or C+