Heartland International Film Festival Review ‘Christy’

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Review by James Lindorf

The 34th annual Heartland International Film Festival was a roaring success from the attendees’ point of view, and one of the best films I saw during the 11-day event in Indianapolis was “Christy.” Boxing has a rich history as both a great sport and a film genre. However, the involvement of women is often overlooked, even though it goes back 150 years in the US alone, when Nell Saunders defeated Rose Harland in 1876, taking home a silver butter dish. The peak of women’s boxing occurred during the 1990s, thanks in part to the proliferation of women’s sports, including the creation of the WNBA and the rise of the US Women’s National Team, but primarily due to the excellence of fighters like Stephanie Jaramillo, Laila Ali, and, of course, Christy Martin. The following decade saw a rise in women-led boxing movies with the success of “Girl Fight” and “Million Dollar Baby.” Still, as boxing began to lose ground to MMA, Hollywood largely stopped creating those stories. Now Black Bear is pulling it back into the spotlight with its biopic about Christy Martin, which opens everywhere on Friday, November 7th.

Christy Martin (Sydney Sweeney) was born the daughter of a West Virginia coal miner and his conservative wife. She never believed there would be a way to escape her small time until her anger and unshakable desire to win led to the discovery that she has a knack for knocking people out. Under the guidance of her reluctant trainer and manager-turned-husband, Jim (Ben Foster), Christy eventually catches the eye of Don King (Chad Coleman). Together, the three help shape the landscape of women’s boxing while Christy’s life outside of the ring falls apart. Christy must fight against expectations, her family, her husband, and even herself in an ongoing battle that may become life-or-death.

Of all sports, boxing is a favorite of directors because of its confined space, limited number of participants, and how any number of grievances can be solved by punching each other in the face. Some directors and cinematographers struggle to find the best angles, resulting in noticeable gaps of space between actors and the thrown punches. In contrast, others opt for a more stylized approach, as seen in Michael B. Jordan’s anime-inspired fight in “Creed III.” The fighting style in “Christy” is probably best described as perfunctory. There is nothing glaringly bad, and some sequences are clearly well done. It is also clear that they are just ways to break up the drama. They do not amount to much more than an elongated montage, which can be fun or engaging, but lacks the drama of the physical battle because the outcomes always feel predetermined.

With the emphasis placed on the drama, the quality of the performances is paramount, and it largely falls on the shoulders of Sweeney and Foster. Everyone else serves as a limited supporting character or, essentially, a cameo. The actor with the most relevance to the story is Merritt Wever as Joyce Salters, Christy’s mother, and she is perfectly detestable. Her devotion to her conservative values over her daughter is infuriating. Martin attended my screening, and it must have been an interesting thing for her to watch an audience actively hate her mother. Sweeney has the most to do as our main character, and she handles it all surprisingly well. Her West Virginia accent feels a little forced at first, but other than that, she was up to taking on both the emotion and physicality required to play Christy. Maybe she will get some nominations, maybe not, but the one who definitely should is Ben Foster. He completely transforms from the Foster we are used to seeing into the brooding narcissist that is Jim Martin. The change in his physical appearance and body language, which complemented his skilled delivery of the dialogue, made him so unrecognizable that I didn’t realize it was him until the credits started.

“Christy” is not a perfect film. It feels rushed trying to cover such a large span of time, even though you may not believe it, since they never do anything but change Sweeney’s hairstyle to fit the time, so she still looks 25 at the end of her career. Due to the pacing, the emotional impact is dampened, but still powerful, as many tears flowed during my screening. “Christy” may not be a knockout, but when we go to the judge’s card, she is a winner at an easy 4 out of 5.

Genre: Biography, Drama, History, Sports
Rating: R (Violence/Bloody Images|Language|Some Drug Use|Sexual Material)
Runtime: 2h 15m
Release Date (Theaters): November 7th, 2025
Director: David Michôd
Producer: Kerry Kohansky-Roberts, Justin Lothrop, David Michôd, Teddy Schwarzman, Brent Stiefel, Sydney Sweeney
Screenwriter: Mirrah Foulkes, David Michôd
Distributor: Black Bear
Production Co: Black Bear, Anonymous Content, Votiv Films, Yoki Inc., Fifty-Fifty Films