The boxing film genre was especially popular in the 1930s and 1940s, with formative classics such as “The Champ” (King Vidor, 1931) and “Body and Soul” (Robert Rossen, 1947), and then again in the 1970s with the phenomenal success of “Rocky.” Boxing films centered on women, by contrast, are rare, even though it once seemed that Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-winning “Million Dollar Baby” might shift the balance. Yes, Karyn Kusama directed “Girlfight” before that, and a handful of minor films followed, but the stories of female boxers have largely failed to reach the screen.
“Christy,” the new film by excellent Australian director David Michôd (“Animal Kingdom”), was supposed to turn Sydney Sweeney into a kind of female Raging Bull. Boxing movies demand a major physical transformation from their stars, one that is often rewarded with Oscar nominations or wins (Robert De Niro being the obvious example). Sweeney, stepping into the gloves of Christy Martin, was required to gain weight, build muscle mass, undergo grueling strength and weight training and sport a mullet haircut. Yet none of this translated into momentum for the film: it flopped at the box office, received largely lukewarm reviews, and if Sweeney had hoped to be walking the red carpet toward an Oscar next month, she will have to wait for another opportunity. It seems the controversy surrounding her American Eagle campaign pushed aside her attempt to establish herself as a serious actress.
The plot of “Christy” spans roughly two decades and begins in 1989. Christy Salters, a lesbian teenager from a conservative coal-mining family in West Virginia, rises from basketball player and amateur boxer to success after boxing trainer Jim Martin takes her under his wing — at first against his will. It feels like a rerun of Rocky meeting “Mo Cuishle” (the Gaelic nickname Clint Eastwood’s trainer gives Hilary Swank’s fighter in “Million Dollar Baby,” a film explicitly referenced here). Salters, for her part, earns the nickname “The Coal Miner’s Daughter,” inevitably recalling the film of that name, for which Sissy Spacek won an Oscar portraying country singer Loretta Lynn. And as in that film, Salters’ story unfolds as a classic rags-to-riches tale. But success in the boxing ring, as the tearjerker “Champion” and the tragic “Raging Bull” taught us long ago, is far from sweet alone.
By focusing on Christy’s life, now Christy Martin after marrying her trainer, David Michôd, who co-wrote the script with Mirrah Foulkes, exposes a grim reality of homophobia, exploitation, gaslighting and domestic violence that culminates in an attempted murder.
Fans of the sport know Martin’s story well: she racked up a series of impressive victories in the ring and became the first female boxer to appear on the cover of “Sports Illustrated,” under the pun-heavy headline “The Lady Is a Champ.” (Netflix offers a 2021 documentary about her, “Untold: Deal With the Devil.”) She also defeated opponents with her big mouth, until she came up against men: legendary boxing promoter Don King (played here by Chad L. Coleman), who worked with Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson; and, most of all, her husband, in a psychotic performance by Ben Foster, a fine actor who deserves far greater recognition. In one almost throwaway scene, he takes her to a seedy motel to box a man who pays for the privilege, a prostitution subtext that is hard to miss. Martin effectively behaves as Christy’s pimp, and in another disturbing scene, he films her at home with a prosthetic penis tucked into her underwear. Michôd, whose film was made in full cooperation with Christy, leaves little of the couple’s private life to suggestion. The story of this female Rocky is essentially a version of “Sleeping with the Enemy.”
That, however, is precisely where the film’s problem lies. It methodically marks the obstacles in Christy’s path: confronting parents who are, to put it mildly, uncomfortable with her sexuality, while simultaneously surviving a toxic heterosexual marriage. The fights in the ring thus become metaphors for Christy’s struggle over her sexual identity and against the demand that she be a dutiful wife. The conflict is presented in a rather simplistic manner, pitting feminist empowerment in the ring against repression at home.
As a result, although Christy’s story keeps us interested, her character herself is little more than an icon. The world is almost entirely against her, inside and outside the boxing ring. Even high-profile bouts, such as those against Ireland’s Deirdre Gogarty and Laila Ali, Muhammad Ali’s daughter, fail to excite. It is as if the fights are merely another step in the narrative rather than its climactic moments. Michôd likes bloody arenas (see “The King,” in which Timothée Chalamet played a young Henry V), but the one he chooses this time lacks real force.
Still, it is a compelling story, and Sweeney’s performance, she was excellent as the real-life whistleblower in “Reality”, proves she is far more than a publicity provocation. Even though she looks more or less the same across the 20 years the film covers, and despite nearly every man she encounters treating her in a patronizing or violent manner, Sweeney manages to shape a character that at times challenges the narrow frame of female empowerment the film pushes her into.
Christy finds small moments of grace outside the ring in the company of her high school lover (Jess Gabor), who leaves her for a man but remains present in her life. Yet this dynamic is sketched somewhat loosely, with the “old flame” appearing at conveniently scripted moments. In any case, Sweeney is reason enough to watch this film — which, it should be noted, she also helped produce.