Christy
In 1988, when Christy Salters (Sydney Sweeney) won the Tough Man Competition and its $300 purse, her brother Randy (Coleman Pedigo) was thrilled, but all her mother Joyce (Merritt Wever) offered was a sour face. Joyce had just received a phone call from her friend Pam who informed her that Christy was in a sexual relationship with her daughter Rosie (Jess Gabor) and Pam was sending Rosie to their priest. But when Christy's fighting attracted the attention of promoter Larry Carrier (Bill Kelly), who offered Christy a $500 purse, board and training with Jim Martin (Ben Foster), Joyce began to take her daughter more seriously as a boxer, but also pushed the 22 year-old towards the middle-aged trainer who, while promising to make her the biggest female fighter in the world, would also become the abusive, manipulative husband of "Christy."
Laura's Review: B
Sydney Sweeney steps into the ring deglamorized, heavier and muscular with unattractive hair styles and no makeup to portray the first female boxer to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated with a performance that knocks out both physically and emotionally. Cowriter (with Mirrah Foulkes)/director David Michôd ("Animal Kingdom," "The Rover") charts her rise in the sport alongside the oppression of her sexuality and gradually worsening domestic situation in a movie that often parallels "Star 80," another tale of a jealous husband trying to ride his wife's coattails to fame, with a happier ending.
The boxer who brings Christy Larry's offer, Richard Christmas (Miles Mussenden), asks her to travel from West Virginia to Bristol, Tennessee, with only her mother, noting that Martin is 'a family man' while nodding toward Rosie. Christy is immediately turned off by Martin, who ignores her until Larry intercedes, but Martin begins to get it when his new trainee knocks out her male sparring partner. The 'family man' soon begins courting her, gifting her with a pink robe, shorts and boots, later telling her she'd look prettier with longer hair, her short cut making her look 'butch.' After telling Rosie she thinks she's found 'her thing,' Rose tells her she's met a guy. Christy hangs up in anger and goes to bed with Jim. His proposal will arrive after he flips out finding Christy having a drink with Rosie, his initial reaction to call her father Johnny (Ethan Embry, "First Man") to tell him he thinks she's gay. Christy's acceptance is more concession than embrace, Jim pitching her on stardom and a deal with Don King (Chad Coleman), but after years of living in the same cheap Daytona apartment without enough fights to keep the lights on, she'll ask what kind of man has a career that doesn't enable him to pay the bills. Jim just excoriates her for 'being above' ways to make money, pimping her out to a guy in a motel room for a perverse boxing bout.
It will be Jesse Robinson who finally hooks Christy up with King, Jim's connection a lie all along, and she snags a $5K per fight contract with her own determination, her first big bout against Irish boxer Deirdre Gogarty (Stephanie Baur) at the MGM Grand, one she wins by decision. Now she and Jim are in their own home, two sports cars parked in their driveway. But Christy's living with a man who controls her every move, and when she's slated to fight the much bigger and heavier Laila Ali (Naomi Graham) and dares to suggest a new, co-trainer, Jim practically strangles her. Instead, he brings in former rival Lisa Holewyne ("Love Lies Bleeding's" Katy O'Brian) as her sparring partner, a gay woman who, along with Christy's team member Big Jeff (Bryan Hibbard), intuits something isn't right in the Martin household.
After this year's "Echo Valley," Sweeney appears to be choosing parts that showcase her as a serious acting talent and she certainly disappears into this role as a scrappy underdog who fights her way to the top while enduring domestic violence at home. Foster, looking like a paunchy Henry Gibson with a dead-eyed stare, is hissable without taking things over the top, a grotesque display of toxic 'masculinity.' We've also never seen Wever this way before, the actress transforming into a judgmental conservative, Embry balancing the scales somewhat, but not enough to offset her character's poisonous effect on her daughter's life. Katy O'Brian just keeps proving her ability, her Lisa tough and tender, and, along with Hibbard and Gabor, the personal lights in Christy's life. Coleman is fun portraying Don King in a more amiable light than is perhaps warranted.
Michôd's production is as deglammed as his lead actress, Christy moving from a humble West Virginia home to a mobile home alongside a Tennessee racetrack to a Daytona motel-style apartment, the 80's and 90's reflected in cars and costume. Cinematographer Germain McMicking ("Nitram") ensures that Christy's fight choreography is front and center while composer Antony Partos ("Animal Kingdom") balances boxing themes with rising tension, using a chorale for her devastating Ali fight. Even more devastating is the film's climax, but Christy's story ends well, with suprises embedded in the film's closing credits.
Robin's Review: B
Christy Martin (Sydney Sweeney) made history as one of the first professional female boxers in the 1990s, even getting managed by promoting legend Don King (Chad L. Coleman). Her colorful career and fame is tainted by her much older, and abusive, trainer-husband Jim (Ben Foster) in “Christy.”
I used to follow pro boxing a bit many years ago and I have to admit I have not heard of Christy Martin. Then again, I never followed femme pro boxing so this was an education. Martin, nee Salter, is a true jock in school, even earning a basketball scholarship at a local West Virginia college. Then, she gets into the ring and a star is born.
At 2 hours 15 minutes, director and co-writer David Michod (with co-scribes Mirrah Folks and Katherine Fugate), tells about Christy’s professional and personal lives, her many fights as a rising juggernaut in the ring and her abusive marriage to Jim Martin.
I felt a strong kinship between “Christy” and other films like “I, Tonya (2017)” and “Star 80 (1983).” Each has talented young woman in a relationship with an abusive, far less talented man and, in each case, things do not go well for the woman. That proves true her as Christy’s much older, and insecure, husband denies her the things that mean something to her.
When we first meet Christy she is in a gay relationship, something frowned upon in West Virginia and, especially, her mother (Merritt Wever). But, things devolve quickly when she meets Jim Martin, a trainer who tells Christy that “people don’t want to watch a butch boxer.” She is forced, for the sake of her career, to go “straight” and she marries Martin.
For Christy, things divide fairly equally as we follow her fast-rising career in the ring. The filmmakers make this rise look easy as she vanquishes one opponent after another, making a name for herself. Jim, though, is not satisfied and makes demands on his fighter/wife, like wearing pink in the ring. He also robs her blind.
Sydney Sweeney puts it on the line as she, physically, does the work and makes her fights look convincing. The other half of the film, her life with Jim, is more nuanced as he asserts his dominant role – he is her trainer, her spouse and her prison guard, depriving her of happiness and love.
While Christy Martin had a long career in the ring, her story could have been pared down and made into a tighter film. It feels, though, like it meanders through the story to its shocking climax and epilogue. The good news is that Jim gets his just desserts in the end.
Black Bear releases "Christy" in theaters on 11/7/25.
