Hitting the theaters on Nov. 8, 2025, the new movie “Christy” directed by David Michôd received immediate backlash due to actor Sydney Sweeney having a vastly different public image than the film’s leading character: Christy Martin, a lesbian boxer.
“Christy” centers around the rise of women’s boxing champion C. Martin, showing her journey from her West Virginia roots to becoming a sports icon. The plot focuses on the darkest aspects of her life, including an abusive marriage to her manager, Jim Martin and her struggle with sexual and personal identity outside the ring.
Most people hear of “Christy” due to the criticism and backlash the movie itself faced. A major point of clash involved Sweeney’s rumored conservative and MAGA leanings, which conflicted with the LGBTQ+ community central to C. Martin’s story. In fact, Australian actress Ruby Rose criticized Sydney Sweeney for ruining the C. Martin biopic, outwardly calling her a “cretin” and claiming Sweeney’s rumored anti-LGBTQ+ views clashed with the film’s core message.
Despite low ratings and controversies, I personally think that “Christy” was a good movie. Having watched it in theaters myself, the movie was well-directed and put together. Sweeney’s portrayal of C. Martin was believable and transformative and the other costars worked seamlessly together. C. Martin herself has defended Sweeney, calling her a “friend and ally” who “worked [hard] for me for my story.”
Indeed, the box office sales were extremely low. In total, “Christy” only made $1.3 million domestically in its opening weekend and $1.35 million worldwide, rendering it one of the lowest-grossing movies in history. However, in my opinion, the film’s impact and its message of survival and hope, even in hard times, far outweighed the commercial success of the movie. The movie depicted C. Martin’s journey in overcoming severe domestic violence and becoming a renowned athlete, which showcased immense strength and resilience.
Hinging on the acting, Sweeney herself was passionate and vigilant, while Ben Foster’s portrayal of J. Martin was bland. It was not only unconvincing due to his unlikely and badly-done appearance, he also didn’t seem to have any romantic or physical connection to Sweeney herself.
Onto the content of the movie, there were definitely a lot of problems. For example, in the film, C. Martin is shown to be underweight and has to add 16 pounds at a weigh-in by adding coins to her pockets to meet the weight requirement for her fight. Not only did this specific event not happen to the real-life boxer C. Martin, this was extremely unrealistic and contrasted with the strict weight regulations in boxing shown in other movies. Another such example is C. Martin’s husband, illogical motivations for hurting her. There are no turning points from loving her to suddenly hating her, even though C. Martin has said herself that there were multiple climaxes and rising points before the abuse actually happened. Without prior research, the motives and film wouldn’t make much sense.
However, at the end of the day, the overall message of the movie triumphed in the end. I thought the theme, while cliché, was not portrayed terribly, and the movie overall, despite controversy and some wavering actors, was empowering and strong. The film stood as an empowering testament to C. Martin’s life and legacy.