Christy: The BRWC Review
David Michôd’s Christy arrives as both a bruising sports biopic and a harrowing survival story, tracing the life of Christy Martin, the trailblazing boxer who shattered barriers for women in the ring. With Sydney Sweeney delivering a fiercely physical and emotionally raw performance, the film explores Martin’s meteoric rise in the 1990s and the unimaginable violence she endured behind closed doors with her husband and trainer, James V. Martin (Ben Foster). What unfolds is a gripping, enraging, and deeply human story that balances triumph and trauma with sobering realism, even if its structure occasionally leans on familiar beats of the sports-biopic tradition.
The film opens in coal country West Virginia, immersing viewers in the quiet suffocation of Christy’s small-town upbringing. There’s no romanticizing here—just the sense of a young woman boxed in by expectation long before she ever stepped into a ring. Michôd renders the landscape in muted earth tones, emphasizing a life waiting to be punched through. Christy’s parents, portrayed with a chilling strictness by Merritt Wever and Ethan Embry, impose conservative values that smother rather than shape, setting the stage for Christy’s lifelong struggle with identity, independence, and courage in every sphere of her life.
When Christy discovers boxing, it isn’t presented as destiny but release. Her first fight has a raw, underground grit reminiscent of The Fighter and Million Dollar Baby, yet Sweeney imbues it with a hungry defiance all her own. The sequences in these early bouts pulse with adrenaline and uncertainty, showing a woman discovering not just a talent, but something close to self-worth. Michôd’s camera work is tight and aggressive—blood, breath, the thud of gloves—turning each match into a fully sensory experience.
Sweeney, who has been steadily broadening her dramatic repertoire, delivers her most commanding film performance yet. This isn’t simply a physical transformation; she plays Christy as a contradiction in motion—charismatic yet vulnerable, brash yet fearful, a fighter who can’t always fight for herself outside the ropes. Her portrayal captures the rage and longing that fuel Christy’s ambition, and she nails the showmanship that made the “Coal Miner’s Daughter” a pay-per-view sensation.
In the ring, she is electric. Outside it, she is heartbreaking.
Ben Foster’s Jim Martin is terrifying without ever tipping into caricature. He begins as a gruff, controlling mentor before gradually revealing the depth of his cruelty. Foster’s ability to embody quiet menace is chilling; he makes Jim’s manipulative grip feel suffocating even in moments of calm. The scenes depicting their marriage are some of the film’s most powerful—not because they sensationalize violence, but because they convey psychological domination with unnerving subtlety. When violence does erupt, it’s filmed with unflinching realism, culminating in the brutal attempted murder that nearly ended Christy’s life in 2010.
While Christy is packed with kinetic fight sequences, the film operates just as forcefully as a psychological drama. Christy’s relationship with her mother is fraught with religious judgment and emotional coldness, embodied chillingly by Wever, who adds nuance to a role that could have been one-note. There is pain in her performance—disappointment, fear, and hints of denial that suggest she is as much a product of repression as she is an enforcer of it.
The presence of Katy O’Brian as Lisa Holewyne, Christy’s rival in the ring, provides both narrative momentum and emotional counterbalance. Their matches are tense and thrilling, but their respectful dynamic hints at the community and solidarity Christy could never find at home. O’Brian’s athletic presence grounds the fight sequences, offering a mirror to Christy’s strength and loneliness in equal measure.
Where Christy stumbles is largely in its adherence to biopic convention. The training montages, media surge, and eventual crash into personal despair follow a rhythm audiences will recognize. The predictability doesn’t sink the film, but it keeps it from rising to the level of reinvention achieved by more daring sports dramas such as Foxcatcher or I, Tonya. Some viewers may wish the script pushed deeper into Christy’s internal life, particularly her struggles with sexuality and identity in a conservative world, themes that feel rich but slightly under-explored.
Even so, Michôd’s direction remains fierce and purposeful, and the screenplay by Michôd and Mirrah Foulkes finds real emotional truth in Christy’s resilience. The final act, dealing with Christy’s survival and testimony after her husband’s attack, is devastating and inspiring in equal measure. The film refuses to sanitize trauma or offer easy catharsis, instead allowing Christy’s story to land with the complicated force that real resilience demands.
The filmmaking is textured and cleverly measured. Grainy cinematography echoes 1990s television broadcast aesthetics during televised fights, while quieter moments favor close-ups that linger on Sweeney’s bruised vulnerability and raw determination. The editing keeps bouts tight and bruising, and the sound design mixes crowd noise, glove impact, and heartbeat-like thuds to simulate the claustrophobic intensity of professional fighting.
The score swells at expected moments but feels restrained enough to avoid melodrama. Instead, many key emotional beats rely more on silence, breathing, or the subtle scrape of gloves on tape. Christy’s pain and power are allowed to fill the space.
Christy is a powerful tribute to a woman who fought battles few ever saw, and even fewer understood. It is a story of survival, ambition, and the cost of breaking barriers in a world determined to keep women out of the ring—and in their place. Though its structure follows a familiar blueprint, the storytelling is urgent and compassionate, anchored by a breathtaking performance from Sydney Sweeney and brutally grounded turns by Ben Foster and Merritt Wever.
The film doesn’t reinvent the boxing biopic, but it hits hard and earns its bruises. Christy Martin’s legacy—punched into history with blood, sweat, and unimaginable willpower—deserves a film of this caliber. It isn’t flawless, but it’s gripping, deeply felt, and ultimately triumphant.
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