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Christy review: Sydney Sweeney's dramatic transformation can't fix 'clichéd' boxing biopic

Sydney Sweeney's remarkable transformation into champion boxer Christy Martin can't fix the film's flaws nor distract from the star's real-life persona.

Sydney Sweeney trained for months,sharke poker muscled up, and put on 30lb (13.6kg) to play Christy Martin, a real-life champion boxer with a dramatic personal story. She wears a dark wig and brown contact lenses. And yet it is impossible to forget that she is Sydney Sweeney in the cliché-ridden biopic Christy, as our hyperawareness of her off-screen image distracts us from what's going on in the film, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this week.

A contradiction at the heart of Christy is that Sweeney is the main reason anyone is paying attention to the project, but her own high-profile celebrity makes it difficult to believe her as the character. Can she ever escape the real-life chatter around her?

The actress has been the centre of often unpleasant publicity, especially in recent months.?There was a notable kerfuffle about her American Eagle ads, with the tag line "Sydney Sweeney has great jeans", which some took as a reference to Aryan genes. Then Donald Trump praised her for being a registered Republican. And The Hollywood Reporter wondered where her career would go "after being in the centre of the storm".?That's not the kind of baggage any actor wants to be carrying on screen, but with Sweeney it's impossible to put aside right now.

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It doesn't help that for almost all of its running time, David Mich?d's film is just one more underdog sports story. It charts Christy Martin's rise to the top as a pioneer of women's boxing in the 1990s, prioritising the predictable sports story over her much more fascinating personal drama. Christy trains with and soon marries Jim Martin, a controlling bully 25 years her senior, with a laughable comb-over. He is played by Ben Foster, who successfully disappears into his role as a thoroughly despicable person. Martin is condescending, telling Christy, "Maybe there is something to this lady boxing business." He realises she is gay but forces her into the closet, saying, "Nobody wants to see a butch girl fight."

She gets to the top of her profession, but when her career inevitably declines, he starts giving her drugs and physically abusing her. No spoilers for the film's most dramatic turn, but the real person ended up as a convicted criminal and died in prison in 2024.

Director: David Mich?d

Cast: Sydney Sweeney, Katy O'Brian, Merritt Wever, Ben Foster

Run-time: 2hr 15m

Sweeney does a fine job of at least suggesting how Christy, without much support around her, is bullied into submission. And there's no denying that the film pushes a lot of buttons, offering everything from an archetypal sports underdog to an actor's remarkable physical change. The problem is that the truly inspiring story of surviving abuse doesn't kick in until quite late in the film. Meanwhile, there is boxing. Sweeney looks athletic, but the choreographed fight scenes aren't very convincing.?Still, it does seem?unbalanced that there is so much visceral violence in the boxing sequences while the domestic abuse happens off screen.

Having said that, the fact that Christy overcomes the odds in the end had the audience cheering at the Toronto screening, so those buttons are pushed effectively for some viewers. But for now, Sweeney's celebrity still overshadows her acting.

★★☆☆☆

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