There are several significant time jumps in the movie Christy, some of which are hard to appreciate given how little seems to change in how the characters look and behave -a twenty-one year time span might seem like only five. But what is implicitly happening through the long interims is very important. Each leap is rough for how it emphasizes just how deep and inescapable a situation Christy Martin is in. The claustrophobia is very aptly felt. And none of it has to do with her boxing career.
It is a sports biopic in which the sport is almost incidental -merely the anchor and backdrop for a harrowing story of abuse and manipulation. In fact it is treated as a downright thriller in some instances by director David Michôd -unsurprisingly for the man behind Animal Kingdom. But then it is an appropriate approach in light of the unique nature of its subject’s story -at least unique in a public sense and her particular region of celebrity. What Christy Martin went through is not so uncommon as we would like to think, and there is a lot in the movie that alludes to that, if it can be heavy-handed at times in the intensity of its themes.
Yet it illustrates well the dismal irony of a woman who with a very tough demeanour fought down so many opponents, while losing her fiercest fight outside the ring. Sydney Sweeney plays Christy Salters, whom we meet as a sixteen year-old amateur fighter in rural West Virginia, hiding a queer relationship from her highly conservative parents. Having entered a female boxing competition on a whim and won, she is spotted by a talent scout and introduced to a local coach Jim Martin (an unrecognizable Ben Foster). Recognizing her talent and insecurity alike, Jim sets his sights both professionally and sexually on Christy, facilitating a series of matches that start to put her on the map and then pressuring her into marrying him under vaguely threatening connotations of exposing her sexuality. From there the rise of her star in the female boxing world and the confrontational personality she forefronts comes in relation to a marriage that grows continually more depressing and controlling until it hits an extremely visceral breaking point.
As noted, this all comes over the course of multiple decades and one of the film’s deficiencies in relation to this is how little change appears reflected in the characters -beyond a minor hairstyle adjustment or something. It’s not her fault, but Sweeney has an extremely youthful face that renders her believable as a teenager or woman in her early to mid twenties; but by the time she is meant to have surpassed forty, she needs stronger effects on her appearance to be convincing. Meanwhile Jim both enters and exits the movie a gross middle-aged creep (more accurate, he was twenty-five years her senior in real life), and the film really goes to a lot of effort to depict him in the most unflattering way possible, with a prominent gut, bad comb-over, and the most irritating nasally southern accent. Foster plays well the scummy narcissism that drives Jim, the painfully obvious insecurities that manifest in his need to control Christy, the pathetic jealousy over her forming connections with any man or woman he deems as sexually threatening, and his general apathy for the direction of her career despite his constant affirmations of her ability to succeed -these often just further acts of his manipulation.
It is a distressing relationship to witness, as Christy seeks what little refuge from it she can find, much as she is unable to define it for what it is for so long: the nightmare scenario for any queer woman living through that period. In going through all this, what Sweeney lacks in camouflage she makes up for in conviction. It is a tough performance and she gives it her all. Her physical transformation is standard, but when it comes to the fights she plays the energy and viciousness well, while marginalizing it in the other facets of her world. When with Jim or her uncaring bigoted mother (Merritt Weaver), her fear and vulnerability shrink her, and the devastating weight of a miserable life shows in Sweeney's weary, expressive disposition. It is a movie performance that sells her as more than a sex symbol, if its clear Oscar-bait inclinations are likely to fall short.
There is nothing especially notable about Michôd's direction as he lets the story's drama carry much of the film on its own -and this is one where the effect is greater if you don't know how it turns out. The intensity ebbs and flows through the various off-ramps that come available to Christy -particularly as we see figures come in who are concerned for her and suspect the abuse, such as team-member Big Jeff (Bryan Hibbard), boxing rival Lisa Holewyne (Katy O'Brian), and her high school girlfriend Rosie (Jess Gabor). And then in the last act, the gaslighting and suffocation of Christy transforms the film into essentially a horror piece -conspiracy enters in, Christy becomes more vindictive and Jim more violent. And yet even in the midst of him turning into a more palpable monster, his being a symptom of a larger oppressive structure in Christy's life does not go underwritten -in fact it is spelt out very bluntly in a key scene with her mother. Not the most original or graceful refutation of systemic misogyny and homophobia, but rendered potently regardless, and with a keen understanding of its continued relevance now.
By virtue of its greater interest in domestic abuse and gendered power dynamics, Christy's story doesn't often intersect with sports movie tropes -although there is in the latter stages drug abuse largely off-screen, implied to be another method of Jim's towering control. Much like The Smashing Machine, it subverts the climactic fight as well; though the movie does lose something in minimizing her time in the ring. It is clearly not an environment Michôd is fully comfortable in with the editing and choreography, but the film might have benefited to show more of what Christy got out of it -her love for the sport outside of Jim's sphere of influence is not emphasized much.
Christy perhaps resonates for me because I have seen or heard of figures like Jim Martin in or around the lives of women I know -he is a far more familiar figure than is commonly realized, even still today. And Christy's story of abuse and suppression is an entirely sympathetic one, one that Sweeney proves capable of carrying. It doesn't distinguish itself in other terms, is rather mediocre in style. But while there may not be any knock-outs in this movie, it does clench your fists.
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