{"id":122836,"date":"2025-09-05T22:24:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T22:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/122836\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T22:24:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T22:24:08","slug":"true-boxing-story-sydney-sweeney-ben-foster-toronto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/122836\/","title":{"rendered":"True boxing story Sydney Sweeney Ben Foster Toronto"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSports movies are fast becoming a cliche, if they ever weren\u2019t. The triumph against all odds stories so prevalent in many of them is hard to make fresh. And coming off two last year, the wrestling drama Unstoppable that merged family with domestic abuse, and the female boxing story, The Fire Within both had similar trajectories, with the latter standing out. And now comes a corker of a true story, also set in the world of women\u2019s boxing, Christy<\/a> starring Sydney Sweeney<\/a> as Christy Martin<\/a>, a celebrated female boxer who was the first ever to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated, but also led a very dark life of domestic abuse, drugs, and a trainer-husband who nearly killed her.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt is all in this overlong (at 135 minutes), somewhat repetitive, and finally in the third act, excruciating to watch. That it is all true is credit to the resilience of the real Christy Martin, who survived the unthinkable and now is a champion against domestic abuse, as well as a boxing promoter. She\u2019s still in the ring and that is something remarkable.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\tIt all starts in her small town in West Virginia, where her talent at boxing is noticed early in high school. \u201cI just want to knock people out,\u201d she says non-chalantly. In no time she is noticed and hits regional boxing matches, soon hooking up with a trainer who was at first skeptical, but not for long as Jim Martin (Ben Foster<\/a>) exploits her talents, and in seemingly no time asks her to marry him even though he is twice her age. He had suspected she might be a lesbian and wanted to nip that in the bud apparently. She says \u2018yes\u2019 and the film quickly jumps from the early 90\u2019s to 1995 where they are already fighting with each other, as well as in the ring. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn by-the-biopic-numbers fashion the movie chronicles her rise to Vegas and the big time, highlighted by a meeting with the legendary promoter, Don King (played with style and fun by Chad Coleman) who dismisses the egotistical Jim\u2019s influence, and sizes her up this way: \u201cYou\u2019re a coal miner\u2019s daughter who wears pink trunks and sleeps with the corner man!\u201d Nailed it. But he signs her up and takes her to another level putting her on undercards with major boxing matches where she demolishes most of her opponents. She also is branding herself with the color pink, not only with what she wears plus her shoes, but even her car. We also get the usual boxing montage as her success grows (Stallone should get residuals for every film that includes these). <\/p>\n

\n\tThere is trouble in paradise as Michod\u2019s film (he wrote the script with Mirrah Foulkes from a story by Katherine Fugate) also focuses on the dark side of fame living with a man who beats her up and dominates her life in every way. Soon the movie jumps decades to around 2003 as she struggles in her marriage, increasingly in fear of Jim, but also in the ring, especially in a bout with a legend\u2019s daughter, Laila Ali who knocks her out in four rounds. Common to these hard-to-believe stories it is downhill from there, especially in her relationship with Jim who again suspects her lesbian tendencies, noticing what he thinks is a too-close meeting with longtime friend, Lisa Holewyne (Katy O\u2019Brian in nice turn). But you ain\u2019t seen nothing yet, when for whatever reason she returns home after leaving Jim and, as he once threatened, attempts to kill her.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film\u2019s third act basically leaves most of the boxing behind to focus on this harrowing domestic abuse, and in that way I was reminded of films like Star 80, the playboy starlet Dorothy Stratten eventually murdered by her jealous manager husband, and also Ike Turner\u2019s abuse of Tina in What\u2019s Love Got To Do With It. It is certainly the stuff of drama and the premiere audience I saw the film with at its unveiling today at the Toronto<\/a> Film Festival, was audibly shocked. <\/p>\n

\n\tSweeney delivers, and then some, putting her all into this sometimes extremely dark tale, and really does show she has the acting chops to pull it off, as if we didn\u2019t already know. Foster, who was so good as Henry Haft in another brutal boxing story, The Survivor, here is on the other side playing a despicable man who fortunately now in real life is in prison. Foster is always convincing (if not his blonde wig) and he plays it to the hilt. Merritt Weaver is cooly fine as a mother who isn\u2019t all that lovable, and the rest of the cast also deliver what is asked.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf only the movie didn\u2019t feel like we have seen this before because Martin\u2019s personal story, and the way she continues to admirably live her life (she married Holewyne in 2017) is worthy of it being told to as many people as possible. Let\u2019s hope Christy, despite its flaws, gets an audience for that reason alone.<\/p>\n

\n\tProducers are Kerry Kohansky-Roberts, Teddy Schwarzman, Brent Stiefel, Justin Lothrop, Mich\u00f4d, and Sweeney.<\/p>\n

\n\tTitle: Christy
Festival: Toronto Film Festival<\/a>
Distributor: Black Bear
Release Date: November 7, 2025
Director: David Michod<\/a>
Screenwriters: David Michod and MIrrah Foulkes. Story by Katherine Fugate
Cast: Sydney Sweeney, Ben Foster, Merritt Wever, Katy O\u2019Brian, Ethan Embry, Jess Gabor, Chad Coleman, Bryan Hibbard, Tony Cavalero, Gilbert Cruz
Running Time: 2 hrs 15 mins<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sports movies are fast becoming a cliche, if they ever weren\u2019t. The triumph against all odds stories so…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[68048,703,49,48,12540,12541,13854,82,8917,15896,3302,2559],"class_list":["post-122836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-ben-foster","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-christy","tag-christy-martin","tag-david-michod","tag-sports","tag-sydney-sweeney","tag-tiff","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}