The better Smashing Machine.

Her traditionalist family doesn’t approve of Christy’s love life, but they do follow her talent for boxing. However, when they start taking a shine to Jim, her trainer, Christy finds herself trapped and isolated.

Directed by David Michôd, and starring Sydney Sweeney, Ben Foster, Merritt Wever, Katy O’Brian, and James Self, Christy is a biopic of Christy Martin. First famous female boxer in America.

Now, just to address the elephant in the room… I generally don’t take any actor’s or crew member’s political leanings into consideration. So this review is going to sidestep any of that. Overall, I had a good time with this movie.

The story starts in the late 1980s, and follows Christy Salters through her debut into the American boxing scene. Upon breaking up with her girlfriend Rosie (Jess Gabor) Christy finds herself with a personal trainer, Jim Martin (Foster) who insists he will make her the greatest female boxer ever. Christy’s fame ramps up, her family is pleased with the direction she is headed in. But how much of the fame is her raw talent and ferocity, and how much does Jim actually help her…?

First things first, I did not recognise Sydney Sweeney at all. Similar to Dwayne Johnson in The Smashing Machine earlier this year, Sweeney is gone. Perhaps even more so than with Johnson. The blonde bombshell is replaced with this peppy, angry pint-sized fighter. It is an incredible transformation. Ben Foster is similarly transformed as Jim; barely recognisable besides the eyes. Their performances carry through the new looks. You care for Christy’s lot in life, and her determination to just do what she enjoys. Her stiff parentage and controversial love life only cements our respect and sympathy for her.

Jim… is an awful human being. Played so well by Foster, he is instantly suspicious and repulsive. The film’s storyline goes to some surprisingly dark places. Jim becomes a controlling force over Christy’s life; cutting her from her support group, screening her calls, manipulating her family into liking him. It is more the story than the boxing; Christy’s entrapment in this awful, terrible relationship.

For the actual boxing scenes, these are excellent too. Very visceral and Sweeney sells it perfectly. Just a little rocket intent on tearing people apart. Sweeney does have training in martial arts, so the physicality is not entirely lost. There are some brutal face punches that will make you wince.

It isn’t all perfect, though. It is better than The Smashing Machine. There’s more chemistry and clearly defined relationships here. Plus, you actually like Christy.
But some of the storytelling is a little… comical. Intensely melodramatic and seemingly unbelievable. This is based off a true story, and I don’t know the true story, but some events are wild. Like when Christy is put into a legal, televised, broadcasted fight in a weight bracket she cannot take part in. Are you seriously telling me, that professionals accepted the weight from a small girl completely covered in military overalls that are audibly jangling from all the money weighing her down?? Reading into it a little more, the movie perhaps does this moment a disservice; and doesn’t deliver it accurately enough.

For a “drama” in the third act, this was extremely underwhelming, despite all the goodwill built up earlier. Although the real drama between Christy and Jim easily makes up for it. There was another scene with Christy and her mother (Wever) that perplexed me, simply by how inhuman Wever’s character was being depicted. Again, maybe that was the reality. In the movie, these big moments felt quite cartoonish.

There is excellent fighting, and some real darkness, in this movie that will stick with me. But there are times when the grounded, realistic tone feels set aside for overwrought drama.