Christy (2025)
Directed by: David Michôd
Premise: Based on true events. Christy Martin (Sydney Sweeney) becomes a successful boxer in the 1990s but her marriage to trainer Jim Martin (Ben Foster) is increasingly volatile and abusive.
What Works: Christy is a sports biography and a survivor narrative. The moviemakers generally give viewers what they look for in these kinds of stories. The boxing action doesn’t reinvent sparring scenes but the fight sequences do convey the violence of the sport. As she’s depicted here, Christy Martin was a female boxer before this was common and a lesbian in a more homophobic time. She had to be self-reliant and we can see that quality in her fighting style. However, the film allows Christy to be vulnerable. She lacks human connections, leading to an unhealthy relationship with trainer Jim Martin. As depicted in the film, Jim was able to manipulate her in part because he had a stranglehold on her career but also because he fulfilled an emotional need. Christy also has a nuanced regard for her place in the history of women’s sports. Christy Martin is portrayed as being ambivalent about her feminist status. The film doesn’t make her an easy symbol for women’s sports. Instead, the story explores the compromises Christy Martin made, crafting her public identity in concert with her husband’s demands and cynical commercial calculations. It’s a more nuanced portrait of a sports star than we usually get from these kinds of movies. Sydney Sweeney plays Christy Martin and she’s able to do both the athleticism and the drama. Sweeney conveys Christy’s internal calculations in her quiet moments and makes her decisions credible. Ben Foster plays Jim Martin and he is quietly imposing. Foster is almost unrecognizable under the makeup and costuming and he disappears into the role.
What Doesn’t: Christy is an emotionally retrained drama. A lot of these kinds of movies—true stories of woman escaping abusive partners—have an emotionally uplifting and even triumphant climax in which the protagonist declares her dignity and independence. Christy doesn’t play that way. The movie is not a downer but it is emotionally and stylistically staid. That’s generally to picture’s benefit. It feels real. But Christy doesn’t give the viewer the kind of emotional payoff that audiences may expect. The story fits into a familiar narrative pattern. As soon as Christy gets with Jim, savvy viewers ought to see where this is going. There’s not much surprising about it and Christy doesn’t illuminate new angles on a familiar scenario.
Bottom Line: Christy is a well-made sports drama. It doesn’t do anything new as a boxing picture or an abuse narrative but Christy is a complicated character study with some very good performances by Sydney Sweeney and Ben Foster.
Episode: #1074 (November 16, 2025)