Never Mind the Bollocks, Go Watch Christy

Trust me, I was thinking the exact same thing as you. Sydney Sweeney in a boxing movie? Skip! That was until my friend said, "I have two tickets to a prescreening of Christy. Do you want to go?" Free tickets to a movie that wasn't even out yet? Yup!

I went in with the lowest of expectations. Even with free tickets, I was still dragging my feet to the theatre. A week prior, I had watched The Smashing Machine and I was more than a little underwhelmed. Although I love boxing movies (top 5: Rocky, Raging Bull, The Hurricane, Ali, The Fighter), I wasn't hopeful that 2025 would add anything fresh to this very-played-out genre.

Christy made me change my tone. It didn't happen right away, but slowly, scene by scene, this movie proved its worth. Through a fascinating story and unique thematic structure, Christy made me believe that there was still new ground to cover in the boxing genre. Although it tries to do too much, Christy is still a memorable and worthwhile experience.

The aspect that stuck out to me the most was the exploration of the protagonist's sexuality. In the early stages of the movie, before Christy Martin (Sweeney) becomes an all-star boxer, she is just a girl who likes girls and has a lot of power behind her fists. She has a cute relationship with Rosie (Jess Gabor), but her desire to make something out of her boxing career forces Christy to move away from home. The distance becomes too much and their relationship falls apart.

In the early stages of her career, who Christy loves doesn't matter very much. It's only once she starts finding success and having to do press conferences that she starts to cover up her true desires. Well, actually, it happens a bit earlier — when her new trainer, James Martin (Ben Foster), starts to make passes at her. Smartly, Christy's sexual repression is never explicitly stated, but it adds the subtext of sacrifice to her harrowing story.

Christy knows that, as a pioneer in female boxing, she will never make it on her own because there is no framework of success in place. Unfortunately, she needs James. He is an asshole from his very first scene, but he's also the one who books her fights and, a little farther down the line, introduces her to Don King — the infamous boxing promoter and renowned scumbag. This symbiotic but also parasitic relationship forces Christy to bend to James's will, and that includes allowing him to call her his own.

Without ever being totally truthful with him, although he has his assumptions, Christy goes along with this quasi-sham relationship so that she can further her career. It's not an admirable move, but it is an honest move and Christy's willingness to tell this flawed but fascinating story is one of the many reasons why I loved it.

Christy takes her heterosexual façade a step further when she purposefully attacks her opponent's sexuality during press conferences. Drama is, of course, an important part of the boxing spectacle, and Christy is playing into the public's presumptions of the sport, just like she plays into James's expectations for his soon-to-be wife. This complex and quiet subplot greatly helps Christy stand out from other boxing biopics.

It's in the middle of the film, after Christy finds success, but before the final act, that Christy is the most fun to watch. While there is the continuing, underlying tension of Christy living a sort of sham life in order to achieve her goals, there is also knockout after knockout. The fight scenes are short and sweet, and largely show Christy one-punching her opponents into oblivion. There are also some out-of-ring scenes that are a ton of fun to watch, such as her first meeting with Don King (Chad L. Coleman) and her moment of doubt before her first big fight on the undercard of a Mike Tyson pay-per-view.

The first thing that bugged me about Christy was its portrayal of post-fight injuries. Throughout the movie, Christy walks out of her bouts looking relatively unscathed. I know she won a majority of her fights, but even winners wear the marks of battle. Showing Christy talk on the phone after a fight with her face looking the same as it looked before felt disingenuous. After fights, almost all fighters' faces swell up like grapefruits. It's gross, but it's real. I think ignoring this reality was meant to romanticize Christy, in a way. The real Christy Martin worked as a consultant on a film, so maybe there was some benefit to portraying her as somewhat infallible. Personally, I felt like they kept the battle scars to a minimum so that Sweeney would continuously look attractive on screen, but I have no evidence to back this up.

I had a blast watching the second act, but the movie's tone shifts drastically in the third act. Its conclusion is both gripping and wonky, becoming a bit scattershot and a lot more bleak. Opening the third act with Christy doing cocaine, and this being the first time we ever see her do drugs in the film, felt jarring to say the least. It also felt cheap, as if the drugs were being used to somehow justify the looming chaos. I have no issue with drug use in films, but it's like Chekov's gun. If you're going to have cocaine fuel the third act, then somewhere earlier you should introduce drug use as a theme. Without it, its inclusion feels tacked on.

The film's finale also includes a scene that had the audience audibly gasping in the theatre. It was so shocking, so unexpected, and yet it was one of those moments where you think to yourself, "I should've seen this coming." I think I was just shocked that a Sydney Sweeney movie was willing to go into these deep, dark waters. It made me respect her more, honestly.

When the movie ended, I was emotionally moved. Despite its flaws, I had to give it up to Sweeney and Christy, because I actually really enjoyed my experience. It definitely bites off more than it can chew, trying to cover every single thing that happens in Christy's life rather than focusing on a specific moment, but I still found the story very engaging and interesting. I knew absolutely nothing about Christy before watching the movie, but I think that was to my benefit because everything came as a surprise to me. Every time Christy took her career further into the stratosphere, I was thinking, "good for her." And when it all came crashing down, I was like, "noooooo." And she deals with so much crap, like her relationship with her mother (Merritt Wever), which is painful. I was cheering in the end when she finally reaccepts her sexuality and becomes the person that she truly is. It's well rounded and employs a lot of smart storytelling techniques.

For anyone reading this dispatch, my advice is to ignore the internet discourse and go watch Christy. It's so much better than what people are saying online. They would rather judge the movie because it financially flopped and Sweeney is a cultural pariah, currently, rather than giving this quality movie a chance. Even if you hate Sweeney, the story of Christy Martin is still worth your time. It's fun, tough, unpredictable, and made me believe that the boxing genre still has some fight left in it.

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