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Larushka Ivan-Zadeh
Published November 28, 2025 6:00am
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Previous Page Next PageFrom her breasts to her politics, Sydney Sweeney is the most scrutinised star on the planet right now.
The blonde bombshell who Donald Trump praised for being a registered Republican, she became a culture-war symbol after some took her American Eagle ads, which read ‘Sydney Sweeney has great jeans’, as a boastful reference to Aryan genes. Not a good look in famously liberal Hollywood.
And now we get her new boxing biopic, Christy (which Sweeney produced, as well as stars in), that’s been gleefully reported as a massive flop, despite the fact that several rival Oscar contenders, including Dwayne Johnson’s wrestling biopic The Smashing Machine, more quietly flopped at the box office.
So, is it any good? Yes. And a punchy reminder that Sweeney is more than celebrity clickbait. She’s the real deal.
To its critics, Christy is an underdog sports flick with some extremely familiar beats. From hardscrabble beginnings, but powered by her guts and raw talent, scrappy young fighter Christy Martin (Sweeney) will overcome obstacles, defeat the patriarchy, and all round triumph against adversity (via obligatory training montages) to become the greatest fighter of her generation – the iconic champion who legitimised women’s boxing.
Where Christy gets more interesting is that it is based on an incredible real-life story. For starters, Christy grows up gay in the 1980s, an era where homosexuality was widely considered less acceptable, not least by her horrified conservative Catholic mother (a camp Merritt Wever).
Christy puts Sydney Sweeney in the boxing ring (Picture: PA)
Ben Foster stars as Christy’s trainer Jim Martin (Picture: PA)
She’s pushed even further back into the closet by her trainer, Jim Martin (Ben Foster), who tells her, ‘Nobody wants to watch a butch girl fight.’ He instructs Christy to grow her hair and decks her out in baby pink shorts for the ring.
Now looking ‘pretty’, she catches the eye of legendary boxing promoter Don King (a hilarious Chad L. Coleman), who brands her ‘The Coal-Miner’s Daughter’ and puts her on as the undercard in a Mike Tyson fight. Proudly non-feminist and decked out in some ghastly, shoulder-padded floral frocks, Christy tells the media, ‘I’m just a regular wife who happens to knock people out for a living’.
Christy: Key details
Director
David Michôd
Writer
Mirrah Foulkes and David Michôd
Cast
Sydney Sweeney, Ben Foster, Merritt Weaver, Katy O’Brian
Age rating
15
Runtime
135 minutes
Release date
Christy releases in UK cinemas on November 28.
Where the story takes an even darker turn is when, despite knowing she’s a lesbian, Jim marries Christy. She is 22, and he is 47 and sees her as his meal ticket.
A red flag goes up when Jim tells her, ‘I’m the only one who believes in you,’ and starts controlling her diet, her clothes, and her friends. And several more red flags when he tells her, ‘If you leave me, I’ll kill you’. Jim may like a buffoon with an outrageous golden comb-over that would make Donald Trump blush, but he’s no joke. And, as the film goes into its jaw-dropping third act – and my jaw literally dropped open – you realise a terrible irony.
That even the world’s best female boxer was unable to defend herself against domestic violence.
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Christy proves Sweeney is the real deal (Picture: PA)
The script may not go deep enough into Christy’s psyche, but Sweeney makes some powerful inroads. Sure, this is a showcase vehicle for her.
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The tiny actress, trained for months, bulked up 30lbs, learnt a West Virginia accent, wears brown contact lenses and some truly atrocious wigs, and generally dowdies up her usual va-va-voom glamour with some seriously unflattering sportswear to create that ‘transformational’ role so beloved by Oscars voters (a trail blazed by Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron et al). But it’s not just cosplay. Sweeney here proves she has proper acting chops.
Physically inhabiting Christy, she is vulnerable and fearless. Rather than going ‘look at me’ she truly disappears into the role.
The film isn’t as strong as her performance. I, Tonya, this is not, and it certainly didn’t need to be 135minutes long. Even so, I was gripped to see what happened nex,t and Sweeney delivers an absolute knockout.
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