CHRISTY
Rated R
135 Minutes
Released November 7th
Sydney Sweeney really puts her heart into this film. She is completely believable as real-life boxer “Christy Martin,” whose battles in life have been more terrifying than those she fought in the ring. The precise choreography of the boxing matches and Sweeney’s unabashed eagerness for the sport lead me to believe that this is an honest portrayal of Martin.
What impresses the most in this movie is the expert level of the boxing, mostly by women boxers. The story of Christy is inspiring, with a haunting refrain found in so many stories of women struggling for respect. Sweeney is one of the most courageous actors working today. She pours her heart into this role, and I believe deserved a more striking cinematic backdrop to surround her portrayal of the fighter.
The movie itself is constructed like a 300-page bio, long to sit through, except Sweeney makes it worthwhile, carrying the spirit of the story from beginning to end. Sweeney is resoundingly “not just another pretty face.” At the age of 28, she has already won numerous awards for her work. Born in Spokane to an attorney and a hospitality professional, her parents realized early on that their daughter needed constant, organized physical activity to tame her overabundance of energy.
Sweeney says, “I was in every single sport possible…I was on the soccer team, the baseball team, the snow slalom ski team, I was wakeboarding.” She also did taekwondo, grappling, and kickboxing, and trained in mixed martial arts. Not to be satisfied with perfection only in sports, Sweeney, as a teen, began to book commercials in the Seattle area, so her family moved to L.A., where she could expand that career and attend high school, where she was class valedictorian.
She learned Russian and Spanish and became immersed in math and robotics. At 19, she got a job leading tours at Universal Studios but had to quit when she booked her first TV acting job in 2009. Since then, Sweeney has grabbed the attention of audiences on many TV shows and films, including Euphoria, the first season of White Lotus, and the sleeper hit Anyone but You opposite Glen Powell, for which she co-wrote the script and formed her own production company so she could book Powell.
She took on producing to create opportunities for herself to play complex, challenging roles. She refuses to be typecast as a beautiful young star. Sweeney is level-headed about her reputation and notes that comments about her body that were made when she appeared in a recent jeans ad imply “this weird relationship that people have with me that I have no control over.”
In her rare downtime, Sweeney is a car enthusiast and has restored a 1969 Ford Bronco and a 1965 Ford Mustang.
Sweeney says she was “blown away and inspired by (Christy’s) strength, her perseverance, and who she is as a woman. Having a character that has so many layers and depths, that’s a dream as an actor.” The actress trained with Matt Balamonte and Grant Roberts, Hilary Swank’s coaches on Million Dollar Baby.
She had to learn a different skill set from her kickboxing, and she needed to absorb Christy’s style. Every fight in the movie is a restaging of one of Christy’s fights, and Sweeney wanted every punch to land hard, to make the film realistic. She notes that “Christy came to life in the ring,” and she wanted that to reach the audience through the screen. During the shoot, Sweeney endured some bloody noses and a concussion. She says, “I told (director David Michod) that he wouldn’t recognize me. I will lose myself in this character. I want to transform for Christy. She deserves nothing less.”
I must mention that the other courageous performance in this movie is that of actor Ben Foster, who, as “ Jim Martin,” had to become a repulsive, self-serving, insecure character who is innately evil.
Sweeney, in this movie, is not afraid to turn herself into a mousy, stocky tomboy with a bad haircut. It’s one of the few times we see her with her natural brown hair color. She and the real Christy have much in common: they’re tough, they’re driven, they’re able to face down their fears, and they never give up. I see Sweeney as a handsome, powerful, middle-aged male A-List celebrity trapped in a cute and voluptuous ingenue’s body. She’s doing well to break those contradictory images and become a star in her own right.
Kathryn Whitney Boole has spent most of her life in the entertainment industry, which has been the backdrop for remarkable adventures with extraordinary people. She is a Talent Manager with Studio Talent Group in Santa Monica. kboole@gmail.com
