TIFF 2025: David Michôd's boxing biopic has great performances, but the film doesn't do them or its subject justice
A solid enough yet often painfully standard boxing biopic that doesn't always connect with every emotional punch it throws, David Michôd's "Christy" has one primary thing working in its favor: Sydney Sweeney.
Yes, she impresses in how she believably embodies being a boxer, but it's the small character details where she really shines. Be it in a smile in the ring or an impassioned speech, we feel the nuances in her performance that the film itself is often lacking. Even when the experience writ large threatens to dull her spark, Sweeney never lets it die out.
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Much like the real figure she is playing -- the iconic boxer Christy Martin, who became a household name in the late 1980s through the 1990s because of her big wins and even bigger personality -- it can feel like she's battling odds at every turn that she really shouldn't have to. And yet, Sweeney comes out as a victor through sheer force of will alone.
Right out of the gate the film begins on rather shaky ground with awkward narration before spending much of its opening act teetering on the edge of accidental self-parody. The clunky dialogue and rushed characterization are built to hit all the main biopic notes, as if checking them off a list rather than really earning them. Already, we can see how it's Sweeney who always manages to help the film regain its footing.
While not her only great performance of late, as she has done great work in everything from the thriller "Eden" to the underappreciated horror "Immaculate," it's her work here that proves she can carry even the most flawed film on her shoulders. Alongside the always excellent Ben Foster, in rare frightening form here as Christy's cruel coach turned husband turned abuser, you buy into her performance even as the rest of the film doesn't quite do her or its subject justice. The story of Christy Martin is certainly one worth telling and engaging at its core, though there is just not enough care given in the build-up to its unshakably impactful conclusion to make it all hit home.
The flaws primarily come from a script by Michôd and Mirrah Foulkes that never consistently cuts deep enough to leave an impression. Often falling back on repetitive montage sequences that don't quite have the energy to stand out in the mind and an overbearing score that the film would often be better off without in critical moments, you can see the emotional strings being pulled. Tracing the arc of her life from when she first burst onto the scene in the late 80s, this is a film that's also about how Christy was not cared for by the people around her. Her parents not only try to get her to repress her sexuality, but her mother (Merritt Wever) is so preoccupied with what other people think of them that she doesn't seem to blink an eye when she is in danger.
It's thus a deeply sad film with moments of lighter, more conventional humor that it tries to use to diffuse some of the pain. The best jokes mainly come in the form of boxing promoter Don King, played by a genuinely chaotic Chad L. Coleman, but underneath his exterior is another man who sees Christy as someone he can make money off of. The only people who we see Christy having something closer to a genuine connection with are her stock ensemble of a team outside her coach, a childhood girlfriend, and her opponent turned partner Lisa Holewyne (Katy O'Brian). It's this last part that feels like it should be the heart of the film, but O'Brian, despite being the most compelling screen presence right up there with Sweeney, is regrettably only given a few scenes to work with.
This is a consistent problem with 'Christy,' as the scenes that really grab hold of you are outnumbered by the ones that feel more broad and one-note. It'd be incorrect to call the film safe, as it's both willing to grapple with its central subject's flaws and also unflinchingly capture the bloody violence that can come from domestic violence, though it's also not nearly as bold as one would hope it would be.
It's perfectly fine in parts, but for a portrait of a larger-than-life boxer in the ring who was also a complex person outside it dealing with many all-too-common pains, "Christy" is a bit of a letdown. An unconventional figure deserves an unconventional film and this one is not only conventional, but stiffly so. It all rests far too heavily on Sweeney's shoulders and even as she more than holds her own, giving the final sequence after the dust settles real emotional heft, far too much else remains oddly empty. Whenever she is expected to get everything back on its feet, you can feel the entire film straining not to fall flat. It succeeds about half the time, making for a split decision where Sweeney and Christy both emerge as champions while the film itself can't quite go the distance.