Christy Martin 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 unshakable desire to wi...
I went into director David Michôd’s biopic “Christy” knowing very little about Christy Martin, the pioneering boxer who helped bring women’s boxing into the mainstream in the 1990s. On that front, the film succeeds as a solid introduction to a genuinely remarkable athlete, chronicling her rise from small town West Virginia to pay-per-view fame. What’s so disappointing is when the narrative turns from an underdog sports story to one of spousal abuse, which causes the film to tumble into a drawn-out, overly dramatic mess that loses steam quickly.
Sydney Sweeney delivers a committed performance as Martin, capturing both her swagger in the ring and her vulnerability outside it. She’s believable as an athlete and looks the part. I’m still not convinced that Sweeney is a particularly strong actor, and someone with more range might have handled this material more effectively. She isn’t necessarily miscast, but in many of the later scenes she noticeably stands out (and not always for the right reasons).
Sweeney’s performance feels largely consistent with the persona she brings to every role, which here works against her. Because so many of her scenes are either underwhelming or unintentionally comical (most notably the final courtroom sequence and a supposedly impassioned speech that had me snickering from the overacting), her presence undermines the film’s emotional weight. Ben Foster brings intensity to her abusive husband Jim but teeters on caricature, a problem more of the script’s broad strokes than the actor’s talent.
Unfortunately, the film loses its footing as it goes on. What begins as an inspiring sports biopic gradually slides into something that feels more like a Lifetime movie than the nuanced character study it promises to be. Michôd leans heavily into melodrama in the film’s later sections, focusing almost exclusively on Christy’s abusive marriage. While the story’s harrowing reality deserves to be told, the filmmaking choices and repetitive scenes of violence, heavy-handed music cues, and overwrought editing make the experience more numbing than illuminating.
The result is a film that becomes exhausting to watch not because of its subject matter, but because of how little variation or insight it offers once the abuse becomes the focal point. The boxing scenes (which are shot with energy and authenticity) are where the movie truly comes alive, yet these moments grow fewer and farther between as the runtime wears on. By the final act, the film is blunted by its predictability. Audiences will know where this story is going long before it gets there.
There’s no question that Martin’s story (one of grit, survival, and groundbreaking success in a male-dominated sport) is worth telling. It’s just that “Christy” doesn’t quite find the right balance between celebrating her achievements and confronting her trauma. It leans too hard on the latter, turning what could have been an inspiring sports biopic into an overly grim cautionary tale.
