Christy
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Rating: R
Run Time: 2 hours 15 minutes
Stars: Sydney Sweeney, Ben Foster
Writers: Mirrah Foulkes, Katherine Fugate, David Michôd
Director: David Michôd
Reviewed at the Toronto International Film Festival
No one finds the sport of boxing more distasteful than I do: Two people, standing in a roped-off square, beating the stuffing out of each other? Please.
But boxing movies? Rocky and Pretty Baby and Raging Bull and Requiem for a Heavyweight? I’m right there in the corner, squirting water into the guy’s mouth and applying Crazy Glue to his split eyebrow. “You got ’em where you want ’em!” I’m barking, à la Burgess Meredith. “Put him down now!”
I’ve long since stopped trying to psychoanalyze my appreciation of films with actors throwing ghost punches and spitting fake blood. Maybe it’s because boxing casts such a singular spotlight on one individual character, and that so many of our most accomplished actors — from John Garfield to Robert De Niro to Hilary Swank — have taken advantage of that opportunity to etch indelible portraits of troubled figures working out their inner anguish within the confines of the squared circle.
Add to that prestigious list of memorable screen pugilists Sydney Sweeney as Christy Martin, the woman who revolutionized female boxing in the 1990s. Sweeney’s knockout performance in Christy traces the fighter’s career from its earliest rounds — fighting for fun in local prize fight contests — to her ascension to the top of her sport and, as in the case of all athletes, inevitable decline.
The boxing scenes are punishingly intimate; cinematographer Germain McMicking (Mortal Combat) and editor Matt Villa (Oscar nominee for Elvis) faithfully follow the model cast by Martin Scorsese in Raging Bull, placing the viewer just within arm’s length of the fighters, waltzing around the ring, almost feeling the sweat and spit flying with each blow.
But the film’s real power lies in the story of Martin’s tragic relationship with her violent, insecure husband/manager, James, played with slow-burn explosive energy by Ben Foster (Hell or High Water). James, a low-rent boxing coach, is the first to see Christy’s professional potential at a time when female boxing was little more than a side show attraction. But even as James resourcefully guides her early career, his overbearing, vaguely threatening behavior sounds alarm bells that Christy doesn’t seem to hear.
Before long, Christy comes to the attention of Don King (effusively played by a rascally Chad Coleman), who catapults her to superstardom — a development that only aggravates James’s gnawing feelings of insecurity. When the ultimate eruption of violence finally comes, we’re not surprised, but nothing can prepare us for the sheer brutality of it.
Through it all, Sweeney continues to forge her reputation as one of the screen’s most versatile and resourceful actors. A warrior in the ring, her Christy nevertheless revels in her femininity — and doubles down as an outspoken, bitter, and often cruel critic of her largely lesbian field of opponents. But it’s a fragile façade: Throughout her attacks, Christy nearly chokes on her denials of her own true sexuality.
And so, my weird relationship with boxing movies continues. For some reason, I’m always ready for one more round.
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