Rating: R | Runtime: 135 minutes
Release Date: November 7th, 2025 (USA)
Studio: Black Bear
Director(s): David Michôd
Writer(s): Mirrah Foulkes & David Michôd / Katherine Fugate (story)

I have no idea who I actually am.

The refrain was always the same: You can be somebody if you listen to what it is I want you to be. Don’t ruin this family by being a lesbian. Don’t question my authority as your coach. Don’t you dare step away from my shadow as your husband despite me being the one who needs you to survive. Listening to those sentiments long enough will confuse you, but having them actually bring the success you crave will get you indoctrinated into believing they might be true. If they are, however, so too must the threats and hate.

Director David Michôd and co-writer Mirrah Foulkes pull no punches building the script for Christy to prove these facts true. Yes, this is the story of the first woman to ever fight on a Pay-per-view card. Yes, Christy Salters (Sydney Sweeney) held the WBC super welterweight title and was the first woman to be elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame. But the message—intentionally so considering her current work as a motivational speaker against domestic abuse—is about the insidious ways the patriarchy seeks to control women.

We see it straight away. Not from Christy’s father Johnny (an unrecognizable Ethan Embry) who proves himself a doormat, but from a mother (Merritt Wever’s vile Joyce) too worried about what the world might say about her parenting to even consider her own child’s happiness. From there the psychological (and physical) violence is passed to a trainer (despite initially clocking his misogyny and temper) who soon also becomes her manager and eventually her husband (Ben Foster’s Jim Martin). And, inevitably, it passes onto Christy herself too.

To the film’s credit, there’s never a moment where we don’t see where this is all heading. The script and performances all work towards impending tragedy with purpose to the point where I knew what was coming even though I didn’t actually know what was coming (boxing has never been a sport I kept tabs on). So, it does prove somewhat frustrating when that foregone conclusion is continuously pushed back. Because it’s one thing to be true to a life with additional context, but it’s another to show the same thing over and over again.

The moment we finally witness Jim’s rage boiling over in the face of a reality that Christy was beginning to understand she didn’t need him as much as he needed her, I thought we were in the movie’s final leg. I was therefore surprised to see we’d barely crossed the forty-five-minute mark. So, when the Don King era (a scene-stealing Chad L. Coleman) arrived to deliver more of the same but with extra money and celebrity, I again thought “here comes the climax” only to realize there was still almost an hour left.

Such is the delicate dance with biopics. You want to be true to the subject, but you must also pay attention to what makes a compelling film. That means knowing when you’re saying the same thing multiple times and deciding if the redundancy is additive or subtractive. Don’t get me wrong: Sweeney and Foster are both very good and spending more time with them isn’t inherently a bad thing. But we can only watch his jealousy and her resentment grow so often without the payoff before we become weary that the whole has gone off-track.

It would also be different if anyone other than Christy evolved. If her mother somehow came to her senses and made the constant examples of her letting her daughter down create something other than a monotonous pattern, the time would be worthwhile. Instead, we find ourselves perking up only to receive another helping of what we already know. So, by the time Michôd and company finally do get us to the horrific result, we’ve stopped perking up. What should be a “peek-a-boo” (as the boxers say) merely lands with a “finally!”

The same can be said for Christy’s allies too. Whether her ex-girlfriend Rosie (Jess Gabor) constantly being pushed aside for the fame a heteronormative lifestyle affords or Big Jeff (Bryan Hibbard) constantly hinting at knowing what is happening behind the scenes without ever stepping in or Lisa Holewyne (Katy O’Brian) constantly providing an olive branch Christy swats away with her brainwashed identity, we’re inundated with repetition. While important to enhance the tragedy of this life, it’s a momentum destroyer on-screen.

I hate to use the phrase, but Christy becomes too much of a good thing. The pieces are so powerful that an inability to know when enough is enough renders that power tiresome. Thankfully, the energy supplied by the acting is high enough to push through and appreciate the lessons and the woman behind the bludgeoning we’re receiving on behalf of the plot. Because this is what happened. Domestic abuse cases do carry on far too long due to coercion and fear. You just need to know your medium and find a balance between facts and pacing.

It also wouldn’t hurt to delve deeper into the effects of toxic masculinity and Christy’s repression of identity to adhere to its demands. While there are numerous examples of it (Jim saying Christy isn’t a feminist and Christy saying she isn’t a role model, Christy berating opponents with gay slurs, etc.) the only two instances of epiphany come as a joke (a very good O’Brien poking fun) and a single line from a post-mortem voiceover. For better or worse, the film values action above introspection.

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Sydney Sweeney in CHRISTY; courtesy of Black Bear, photo by Eddy Chen.