"Sydney Sweeney put on a reported 30 pounds of muscle to play boxer Christy Martin, the subject of Christy, turning her body from red-carpet willowy to one with a sturdy solidity. The movie begins in 1989, when Martin was just out of her teens and fighting in Toughwoman contests, and spans 22 years, providing all sorts of opportunities for ungainly period hairstyles, from a ragged pageboy to a curly mullet to a frizzy shag."
"In starring in Christy, in other words, Sweeney is participating in two of the grand traditions of actors wanting to demonstrate their seriousness and also potentially win an award. She's transformed her body, like Robert De Niro in Raging Bull and Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club, and she's dramatically deglamorized herself, like Charlize Theron in Monster and Jennifer Aniston in Cake."
"But Christy, which was directed by Animal Kingdom's David Michôd from a script he wrote with his partner, Mirrah Foulkes, isn't rote Oscar bait, and Sweeney isn't doing the sort of studied showboating that so often comes with the territory. For reasons not entirely or even mostly of her own doing, Sweeney has become an exasperating celebrity - not above baiting the press, but so painstakingly media trained that her public appearances are devoid of substance and any sense of personality."
Sydney Sweeney gained a reported 30 pounds of muscle to portray Christy Martin, shifting from a willowy red-carpet look to a sturdier physicality. The film begins in 1989 and spans 22 years, featuring period hairstyles and a mostly makeup-free Sweeney whose bloodied face recalls Martin's 1996 bout with Deirdre Gogarty that helped mainstream women's boxing. Director David Michôd and co-writer Mirrah Foulkes avoid straightforward Oscar-bait; the movie loosely follows a rise-fall-redemption arc while maintaining nuance. Sweeney's public persona can feel media-trained and blank, yet her acting choices and production efforts make her performance compelling.
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