If the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival only gives us one thing this year, it will be an excuse to talk about Sydney Sweeney and not have to mention jeans. The actress and for-some-reason political lightning rod delivers her best film performance to date in Christy, the true-life story of boxer Christy Martin (née Salters); she had the crowd in the palm of her hand at the film’s world premiere.
The film is a down-the-center-lane portrayal of Salters’ ride to fame as a pioneer female boxer, whose massive success masked years of abuse at the hands of her husband and trainer Jim Martin (an initially unrecognizable Ben Foster), who eventually tried to kill her. But as typical a sports biopic as this is, it also offers Sweeney an ideal opportunity to level up as an actress. She puts the film on her shoulders and dials into Christy’s intensity, ferocity, and the brash ego that made her boxing’s most popular ambassador and her opponents’ most hated rival.
Christy, directed by David Michod, is at its most interesting when it occasionally steps outside the conventions of a biopic and interrogates the issues of sexuality and femininity in the backdrop of Christy’s story. Jim pressures Christy to dress and behave more stereotypically feminine (so much pink), no matter how it clashes with her pugnacious athleticism. Christy, meanwhile, is a trash talker who often jabs at her opponents for being masculine “dykes,” though in reality queer relationships help shape her story, as they did in real life. Jess Gabor plays Christy’s teenage girlfriend, a thwarted first love who lingers as a great what-if in Christy’s life before resurfacing at a crucial time. Meanwhile, Katy O’Brian (Love Lies Bleeding) plays Christy’s rival boxer Lisa Holewyne, who appears only a handful of times but whose story intertwines with Christy’s in a satisfying way.
It’s tough to tell how much Sweeney’s status as a MAGA horcrux (and the degree to which her own politics do or do not lean right) matters to anyone beyond the very online, but Christy is bound to stymie easy narratives. It’s not a movie that attempts to hide its title character’s complicated sexuality, and the filmmakers make no bones about Jim’s abuse being rooted in a controlling misogyny and homophobia.
This all exists in a hugely crowd-pleasing package. The Toronto audience cheered, gasped, laughed, and cried. They gave the real-life Christy Salters an extended standing ovation, and they even applauded her little dog.
The film gets off to an admittedly shaky start — you will absolutely spend the first 20 minutes thinking of nothing but the wigs they’ve placed atop Sweeney and her co-stars. (Poor Merritt Wever, playing Christy’s small-minded mother, is stuck wearing the homophobic-aunt wig Melissa McCarthy sported in Spy.) But the film finds its footing the more it puts Sweeney in the driver’s seat. It’s a star vehicle that aims to do for Sweeney what Monster did for Charlize Theron or I, Tonya did for Margot Robbie.
Whether that actually happens is another story. The film is being produced by Black Bear, a film financing company getting into the distribution game for the first time with Christy. They currently hold international distribution rights, while a deal for U.S. rights hasn’t been struck yet. An Oscar nomination might feel like a surer thing if this film were in the hands of a seasoned awards campaigner like Focus or Searchlight — or, honestly, Netflix; I bemoan the fate of strong theatrical features that get swallowed by up by Netflix as much as anyone, but they already have a Christy Martin documentary on their platform, and they know how to get actors nominated. A smart campaign could absolutely gain traction for this performance. Academy voters love biopics, boxing, and stories of resiliency. They also love when an actress known for her beauty takes on a more hard-boiled persona. The movie even name-checks Million Dollar Baby at one point — the path ahead is clear.
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