It’s nearly awards season, so that means it’s time for the biopics. Films in this particular sub-genre released this time of year sadly primarily exist solely as vehicles for actors who don’t regularly do prestige fare – to possibly offer up a transformative performance, for accolades and new opportunities. Sydney Sweeney’s latest, which I just caught at the Philadelphia Film Festival – Christy is exactly that. While she’s proved her hand at comedy, horror and drama, she’s struggled to be taken seriously as an actor, partly due to personal controversies and also because she hasn’t had that kind role to make people forget she’s Sydney Sweeney.
Enter a project based on the life of boxer Christy Martin, who not only legitimized female boxing as a sport, but had the kind of sordid personal life worthy of a Netflix series. If you haven’t watched the Netflix series yet, for the film’s sake, I would probably hold off until post viewing for maximum effectiveness. I hadn’t seen the series, so sitting down – I simply had a great respect for women’s boxing, which I had thanks to the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight. The only thing I took away from that disappointmenting match, which was the first boxing match I ever watched in full – was the fact that the female undercard between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano, put the boys to shame.
Christy Martin begins the film as a happily gay young woman from a small rural coal mining town in West Virginia, hence her nickname “The Coal Miner’s Daughter”. She’s struggling to find her identity, when one finds her. After winning a boxing match the then 21 year old is recruited by a promoter who sends her to be trained by 47 year old cis white man – Jim Martin. This is on the condition that she abandons her queerness – because her trainer is a “family man”. While Jim promises to “make her the greatest female fighter in the world’ and he does just that, their partnership quickly turns into a forced marriage, when Jim threatens to stop training her upon discovering her having drinks with her ex. As we see Christy quickly rise to heights she’s never dreamed of, signing to Don King and fighting the undercard at Tyson vs. Holyfield, it’s ultimately at the price of her queerness and freedom.
While you have this awards caliber performance from Sydney Sweeney – that you would expect, the narrative around her falls short of living up to her moving and transformative take. There’s also no other memorable performances in the one seater. The film’s narrative itself is messy and feels like there’s three different stories fighting for our protagonist’s time and ultimately taking all the air out of the room. You have one woman struggling with her sexual identity in a time where that was basically forbidden, you have the champion boxer trapped in a controlling and abusive relationship and you finally have the tried and true boxer underdog story of one woman elevating an entire sport on her own. But those three stories never feel like they coalesce into the inspiring narrative you’re expecting, instead all completely unravelling for a third act.
Don’t get me wrong, the film definitely has its moments where it shows what this film could have been and that’s the most frustrating part about Christy – like its subject you could see the potential. But before you can ever get truly invested, the narrative quickly changes gears yet again and again, until you’re at the end and you’re not quite sure how you got there. But it’s a genuine shame, that in its two plus hours it doesn’t do justice to Christy Martin’s story, which has so much to offer for those figuring out their sexual identity, those stuck in an abusive relationship or those just could use some hope in these trying times. But the only thing folks will no doubt take away is that Sydney Sweeney can indeed handle this calibre of role and offer up this kind of awards worthy performance, but like Christy, this is at the price of everything that was important to this story and its real protagonist.
