In the last 30 years there has been at least one pugilistic film released every year. Movies about female boxers are still rare. 2000 gave us Michelle Rodriguez in Girlfight. Hilary Swank won a Best Actress Oscar for her role in Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby in 2004. In 2014 India gave us Mary Kom. Last year (2024) we had The Fire Inside, a biopic about Claressa "T-Rex" Shields. And now, just in time for award season we have Sydney Sweeney bringing the story of Christy Salters to the screen.
I knew nothing about Christy Salters going into my screening. This naïve, rambunctious scrapper from West Virginia started her pugilistic journey by entering a local strong man contest in 1989. She kept boxing around the area where she lived winning small purses. By 1995 she was being scouted, taking an offer Jim Martin (Ben Foster) to train her. He got her fights, and she continued to get noticed until she got a meeting with the infamous Don King (Chad L. Coleman), at which point her career skyrocketed.
This is a movie about Christy taken in by a less than scrupulous man, about Christy who preferred women at a time when that was frowned upon, about Christy who is constantly at odds with her religiously snobbish mother Joyce Salters (Merritt Wever). Joyce does everything in her power to come between Christy and her real love Rosie (Jess Gabor). We follow the twists and turns of Christy's life, and the painful existence that attached itself to her.
Sweeney and Foster electrify the screen with their performances. Sure, at times it does feel like another boxing biopic. At other times it is engaging, like riding a roller coaster of emotions with the title character. Sweeney conveys the full range of those emotions, sometimes with just her eyes. Foster embodies the creepy Jim without any sense of self-consciousness. I have always liked Ben Foster no matter what the roll. This is a good bad one for him. And the final act is worth it when it comes. You just wait and see what hits you.
