Christy

College basketball player Christy Martin finds "her thing" when she enters an amateur boxing competition and knocks out her opponents. Her homophobic mother, Joyce, is troubled by rumours about her daughter's relationship with classmate Rosie so Christy languishes in the closet and accepts help from a coach, James V Martin, who eventually becomes her husband. Behind closed doors, Christy is brutalised and belittled by her husband.

LondonNet Film Review

Christy (15) Film Review from LondonNet

Director David Michod’s heavyweight boxing drama, based on the life of Christy Martin who blazed a trail for women in the sport in the 1990s and was affectionately nicknamed the Coal Miner’s Daughter because of her humble West Virginia upbringing, delivers its most devastating blows outside the ring. If you don’t know the harrowing true story of Martin’s personal struggles that fuelled her hard-fought rise to glory then the final 30 minutes of Christy are a gasp-inducing dramatic knockout…

In 1989, college basketball player Christy (Sydney Sweeney) finds “her thing” when she enters an amateur boxing competition and knocks out her opponents. Her homophobic mother, Joyce (Merritt Wever), is troubled by rumours about her daughter’s relationship with classmate Rosie (Jess Gabor) so Christy languishes in the closet and accepts help from a coach, James V Martin (Ben Foster), who eventually becomes her husband. “I’m just a regular wife who happens to knock people out for a living,” Christy cheerfully explains to one interviewer as she signs a contract with boxing promoter Don King (Chad L Coleman) and agrees to a high-profile under card match against Irish fighter Deirdre Gogarty (Stephanie Baur) on the March 1996 bill between Mike Tyson (Adrian Lockett) and Frank Bruno.

Supported by her ringside team of Big Jeff (Bryan Hibbard) and Miguel Diaz (Gilbert Cruz), Christy is an unstoppable force but behind closed doors, she is brutalised and belittled by her husband James, who repeatedly tells her that he will kill her if she dares to leave him. A showdown with Laila Ali (Naomi Graham), daughter of Muhammad Ali, rocks Christy’s confidence and a close bond with rival fighter Lisa Holewyne (Katy O’Brian) deepens the rift in her marriage.

Christy is a knuckle-bruising showcase for Sweeney and Foster, who vanish into their psychologically damaged characters, both cranking up tension as their spouses’ verbal jabs (“What kind of man has a job that can’t pay the bills?”) escalate into life-threatening physical injury. Michod’s script, co-written by actress Mirrah Foulkes who appeared in his scintillating 2010 debut Animal Kingdom, pulls no punches in its matter-of-fact depiction of domestic violence and degradation behind closed doors.

Boxing sequences are slickly choreographed and cinematographer Germain McMicking dances inside the ring to capture every cut and jab in sweat-speckled close-up. However, there is an aching predictability to the heroine’s fall from grace in an arena where bullish self-confidence wins half the battle against taller and heavier opponents. Wever’s softly spoken but venomous matriarch, who is unapologetically blinded by bigotry, draws considerable blood in her limited screen time. The film’s jaw-dropping final flurry picks up points dropped in a sluggish middle hour.

– Kim Hu