The way Hollywood keeps shoving certain actresses into the same roles over and over again—as though they’re only allowed to be a pretty reflection of somebody else’s fantasy. Sydney Sweeney, finally, has broken out of that dollhouse.
THR’s Scott Feinberg has the headline, “Like It Or Not, Sydney Sweeney Has Joined the Best Actress Oscar Race for ‘Christy.” He’s right, this year’s thin Best Actress race could benefit Sweeney’s awards trajectory. The film will be the first release via Black Bear’s new distribution arm, which has given it an awards-friendly theatrical release date of Nov. 7.
In “Christy”—David Michôd’s bruised and brutal biopic of boxer Christy Martin—she kicks that door down with impeccable power. I knew she had it in her. Anyone who actually sat through “Reality”—that extraordinary, underseen HBO experiment where she carried the movie as a real-life NSA whistleblower, with nothing but her own nerves—knew Sweeney wasn’t just another pretty face.
What she does here isn’t transformation in the fussy, prosthetic Oscar baity sense. It’s more unnerving than that. She doesn’t vanish into Christy; she lets Christy emerge through her. The Oscar buzz you’ve been hearing about this performance is warranted.
Michôd, who has always had a taste for ugliness disguised as entertainment, tricks us into thinking we’re in a sports movie. He does gives us the clichés—those training montages—but what we’re watching is less “Rocky” than a film about cruelty, in the hands of a sadist husband (Ben Foster, an expert in sleazeball).
The script (by Michôd and Mirrah Foulkes) clunsily ticks the boxes—abusive husband, repressive mother (Merritt Wever), the triumphs, the plunge into drugs. You can feel Michôd tugging the strings, dragging us from beat to beat. The narration at the beginning is so awkward you want to swat it away.
What saves it—what keeps the lights going—is Sweeney. She’s the reason this thing breathes. Watching her here, you realize how often she’s been shoved into glossy pin-up roles that only hint at the talent she carries. She isn’t just believably a boxer; she’s believably a person who boxes, and that distinction matters.
The tragedy is that Christy Martin herself was anything but conventional—and the movie that pretends to honor her life insists on being exactly that. It’s really too bad because Sweeney absolutely shows up for the fight.