Christy – Movie Review

As may be the case for you, before seeing this, I wasn’t aware that Christy Martin, played by Sydney Sweeney, existed. The sport of female boxing needed someone to get the word out. Christy did her part there.

She wasn’t the first woman to box, of course, but with her mouthiness and abundance of confidence, even when it wasn’t exactly warranted, she got the sport much-needed attention. This film does that for her. What she went through just trying to navigate life is a good story to watch. As she climbs the ladder in women’s sports, she’s taken advantage of by her trainer/husband, Jim, played eerily well by Ben Foster.

It starts with her winning a tough man competition. A man named Larry, who makes a lot of money finding talent like hers, talks her into coming with him and seeing if she can handle life as a boxer. She gets a hotel, a purse of the kind of money she doesn’t see… and she has a profession. Things move fast for the young woman. Intimidated, she needs a mentor. Sadly, she leans on Jim to be her guide. He can mold her into what he wants, someone who’ll work for him, bring in the dough, and not question where it goes. He “takes care of” everything. She’s lost.

When you first see her fight, you root for Christy. She’s good at what she does, but she’s a pain in the ass. Eventually, you see she doesn’t have what it takes to navigate the world, especially the one she has just landed in. She knows nothing of getting herself promoted, so she’s frustrated, scared, and lonely. The rise of the “Lady Boxing Business” ends up riding on her shoulders. She likes it but doesn’t understand what it means or what it’ll ask of her, which could be to lose everything she is and has ever known. It’ll make her what she already is, the best female boxer out there. Why does she need others to do this for her?

You’ll like getting to know the characters. Director David Michôd makes the fighting choreography believable. The acting is good. Ben Foster is unrecognizable. Sweeny looks so much like the real thing, you wonder if they aren’t related. The legendary Don King promotes her, she’s put in the ring with guys for practice, so you’re made aware of how tough she was in her heyday but it’s during the final third of the film where you see her start to come into her own and you see what she’s truly made of. I won’t tell you why I say that suffice to say these scenes are the most captivating in the movie. The end is what you’ve been waiting for and worth the ride. There are signs you’ll probably pick on and see the end coming, but I won’t tell you anyway.

The script could be better, at over two hours, it’s way too long but I give this a recommendation. This woman deserves to have her story told. Not many could take what she went through and live to tell it. Stay for the closing credits.