Christy
★ ★ ★ ½
Christy is a biographical film about Christy Martin (Sydney Sweeney), a female boxer who helped pioneer women’s professional boxing. This film explores a woman who is nearly unbeatable in the ring but struggles with her sexuality as well as both familial and marital abuse away from the ropes.
According to the film, she wasn’t looking for a career in boxing, but discovered she was good at punching people at a Toughman Contest. She entered Toughman on a whim, and her performance in the ring caught the attention of a local promoter, who sent her to a boxing manager in Florida. That’s when she meets Jim Martin (Ben Foster), a man who will propel her career but destroy her behind closed doors.
Sydney Sweeney as Christy and Ben Foster as Jim Martin
© 2025 Black Bear
Jim reluctantly trains Christy, and the more it becomes apparent that she’s a rising prodigy, he starts to focus his full attention on her. She’s just 22 when they start working together; he’s 47. It’s not long before the professional relationship turns intimate. It’s a relationship built upon Christy appeasing her mother with a traditional relationship and Jim’s need to control her by keeping her close at hand. When he asks her to marry him, it’s fueled by control, not love.
It’s clear where Jim is headed—toward emotional, physical and sexual abuse. From the outside, the danger seems obvious. The film does a great job of putting us in Christy’s shoes—as Jim slowly erodes her sense of self and overtakes her autonomy. But the abuse didn’t start with Jim.
Christy’s mom, Joyce Salters (Merritt Wever) carries a quiet, soft-spoken control over her. Joyce’s dominance is calm, measured and calculated—serving her own interests and keeping the family image intact. Joyce speaks gently and kindly, but makes her disappointment clear. It’s a tool Joyce uses to keep Christy in line. By the time Christy meets Jim, her sense of self has already been distorted.
Christy is ultimately about a pattern of systemic abuse that stems from home and carries to adulthood. Unchecked, it opens the door for the next abuser to step in. The film explores this theme very well, appropriately quiet and understated at times, then smashing like a wrecking ball.
Sydney Sweeney as Christy
© 2025 Black Bear
There’s a scene where Jim approaches Christy with a knife. At first, she isn’t sure what he’s going to do. Jim’s matter-of-fact demeanor quickly gives way to a sudden, brutal attack. Anyone who’s ever been in a fight knows this feeling. It’s that no-turning-back moment—the realization that this is really happening. For Christy, it’s literally life and death. Her attempt to get out of the house, pulling herself out of a pool of blood while Jim takes a shower after the attack—leaving her for dead—is a scene that will move you to the edge of your seat as you seethe in anger, hoping she survives.
There are times when the film takes a more casual look at the abuse rather than diving deep and attacking the nerve. Had the story pursued this a bit harder, it would be a near-flawless piece of storytelling.
Sweeney is convincing as Christy, a brutal boxer when she needs to be, yet vulnerable and fragile when she can’t be. Foster plays the mentor-abuser role with a quiet darkness, hiding the monster beneath his skin. But Wever’s Joyce may just be the real villain in this whole story—appearing as a wholesome, caring mother, while gently sliding the blade of judgment between Christy’s shoulder blades.
Christy is a compelling film that may not drive far enough down the road at times but manages to put us in Christy’s corner. It may have been vulnerability that trapped Christy in abuse, but it’s her fighting spirit that pulled her off the blood-soaked bedroom floor.