Christy was one of those biopics that sounds intense from what I saw on the trailer aside that I saw her beginnings when I was little, my father was huge boxing fan and I was not really into it back then but still watch fights here and there. Biopics are not easy to make at all and this one delivers in some spots but leaves you feeling like somethings missing by the end, specially for a movie running 2 hours and 15 minutes long which feels like forever when you realize how much they rush through. Sydney Sweeney does solid work transforming into Christy Martin and you can tell she put in effort to disappear into the role with the weight gain and everything but I feel like the movie skips over some parts of the story and instead of a proper biopic looks more like a domestic abuse story to be honest. The domestic abuse situation with her husband Jim played by Ben Foster feels rushed and not fully explained, like we see him being controlling and abusive but the movie never really digs into how someone as strong and smart as Christy got trapped in that situation for so damn long or why she kept going back, at least that how I see it, sometimes I find that not only biopics are hard to make but even hard to enjoy unless you really know the complete story and if so Im sure viewers end up disappointed when part of the story is skipped, for a movie this long you would think they could spend more time showing us how that relationship turned so toxic instead of just telling us at the end that she did not even know how to buy groceries or tie her shoes. That detail caught me way off guard because nothing in the movie made it seem like he was controlling her to that extreme level where she could not function without him, it felt like they threw that in there just to make us understand how bad things were but it comes too late in the story to really matter at all. The whole closeted lesbian angle is there throughout the entire thing and her mother is absolutely trash for how she treats her daughter, more concerned about rumors than her own kids safety which was infuriating to watch especially when Christy tries to open up about anything and her mom basically tells her to shut up and deal with it because the church might hear about it, what a POS mother ngl.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32323252/
- Platform: PLATFORM
Rottentomatoes Rating
Source
Sydney Sweeney really does transform here and its probably one of her best performances since Euphoria where she actually had to act and not just look pretty for the camera, she gains weight for the role and looks completely different from what we normally see in tight clothe although I dont complain about her in tight jeans. You can see her working hard to bring this character to life from the beginning when Christy is just a coal miners daughter from West Virginia trying to find her thing in boxing, she goes from this young girl at a strong man contest in 1989 to fighting on national television for Don King and the whole journey is interesting to watch even when the script does not give her enough to work with or explain things properly. The boxing scenes are done pretty well and you feel the impact of the punches, they do not shy away from showing how brutal the sport can be and how much damage these women take in the ring which I thought was a good choice because it makes you understand why Christy was so important to womens boxing back in the day, she paved the way for people like other female boxers even though the movie does not really focus much on her later career fights. Ben Foster is absolutely unrecognizable as Jim Martin and he nails the creepy abusive husband role in a way that made me a bit uncomfortable every time hes on screen like you already know you want someone to beat him up badly, I did not even realize it was him at first until I looked it up after because he put on weight and looks completely different with the makeup and everything, from the moment you meet this guy you instantly hate him and theres not one single moment where you think maybe hes not that bad or maybe he really does care about Christy at all. He always knew exactly what he was after, like getting her that meeting with Don King and training her to become a champion but its all about control and keeping her dependent on him for everything including her career and her money and even her identity, the dude is a complete asshole from start to finish and you just want someone to punch him in the face for two hours straight.
Source
The movie builds Christys story starting in 1989 when she wins her first fight and catches the attention of people who think she might have something special, she meets Jim Martin who becomes her trainer and eventually her husband even though she does not seem into him at all because shes actually into women which becomes a huge part of the story. The relationship with Jim starts off weird and gets worse over time as the movie goes on, he controls what she eats and how she looks and who she talks to and what she says in interviews and it becomes this suffocating thing where Christy cannot breath without his permission, its like watching someone slowly drown and nobody is throwing them a life preserver. Theres this constant threat of violence hanging over her head because Jim keeps telling her that if she ever leaves him he will kill her; literally, and he says it multiple times throughout the movie so you know its not just an empty threat and sure enough when she finally tries to leave him for real he stabs her like multiple times and shoots her and somehow she survives which is the craziest part of the whole story, what a mf badass bitch, not even men take all that and then carry themself to the hospital, I was like damn literally "Ill be back...", I did not see that coming at all even though he kept threatening to do it the whole time. The mother Joyce played by Merritt Wever just the same as terrible as Jim in her own way, she runs the household while Christys dad and brother work in the coal mines and she has this weird traditional mindset where she thinks Christy just needs to find a good man and stop all this boxing nonsense and definitely stop hanging around with women who might be lesbians because what will the church people think. When Christy tries to talk to her mom about the abuse shes dealing with from Jim, Joyce basically sides with Jim and acts like Christys making it all up or exaggerating things and even threatens to tell Jim about the conversation which is just insane behavior from a mother who should be protecting her daughter instead of throwing her under the bus like that, you just want to reach through the screen and shake some sense into this woman, still we human never stop to come up with impressive ways to screw things up.
Source
Jess Gabor shows up as Rosie who is Christys girlfriend and the whole storyline with her brings this intensity to the movie that makes you understand why Christy falls for her, she was great in the role. Katy OBrian plays Lisa Holewyne who is Christys boxing rival and eventually becomes her wife in real life after all this goes down, I actually wanted way more of both these characters in this movie because they were good and you can see the chemistry there. The whole lesbian thing is handled in a way that shows how much Christy has to hide her true self from everyone including her family and the boxing community and even the media, she goes on press tours and actually slams other female fighters for being lesbians while she was hiding the same thing about herself which is kind of sad but also shows how much pressure she was under to maintain this straight image that Jim wanted her to project to the world. Don King shows up played by Chad Coleman and hes got some good moments where he puts Jim in his place and makes it clear that Christy is the real star not her husband, but even Don is not really a good guy in this he just sees Christy as a way to make money off womens boxing which was a new thing at the time and he wanted to cash in. The movie focuses more on the domestic abuse situation than the actual boxing career which makes sense for the story they are trying to tell but it does leave you wanting to see more of her actual fights and what made her such a big deal in the sport, would have been nice to see how that all connected together instead of just showing us bits and pieces and moving on to the next thing.
The end of the movie is probably the most intense part where Jim finally snaps and tries to murder Christy after she decides shes done with him for good, he stabs her multiple times and slices her leg and then shoots her and leaves her for dead but somehow she survives and crawls to get help which is just wild to watch. The movie does not waste time after that, it wraps up pretty quick with Jim getting arrested and Christy recovering and moving on with her life with Lisa and it feels a little rushed like they spent so much time on the abusive relationship that they did not leave enough room to show Christys healing process or what came after, I get that the focus was on the abuse and her survival but it would have been nice to see more of her life after she got away from Jim. Maybe show her rebuilding her career or reconnecting with the boxing community or even just spending time with Lisa and figuring out who she is without Jim controlling everything, instead we just get a quick wrap up and some text on the screen telling us what happened next which feels lazy after sitting through over two hours of this. Overall Christy is an okish biopic with some really strong performances from Sydney Sweeney and Ben Foster, Merritt Wever does a great job making you hate the mom and the story itself is wild especially when it gets to the stabbing and shooting part which I did not see coming since I knew how her career started and saw her fights but never knew how things end between her and Jim. The boxing scenes are well done and the whole lesbian angle adds another layer to the story that makes it more than just another sports movie but it feels like a standard biopic that could have been way better with some more focus on the psychological damage instead of just surface level drama, I am giving it a 7 out of 10 because the performances were really good even when the script was not so strong.
#skiptvads, #inleo, #hive, #christy, #sydneysweeney, #benfoster, #biopic, #boxing, #christymartin, #domesticabuse, #survival, #lesbian, #closeted, #jimmartin, #toxic, #relationship, #donking, #katieobrien, #merittweaver, #abuse, #fighter, #womensboxing, #violence, #westvirginia, #transformation, #oscar, #performance, #review