No, not the recently released social realist drama of the same name from Cork. David Michôd’s latest film is a straight-down-the-middle biopic of a seminal figure in the development of women’s boxing. Christy Martin, raised in West Virginia, broke through with a 1996 fight against an undercelebrated Irish legend.
On the undercard of the that year’s title fight between Frank Bruno and Mike Tyson, she just brawled her way past Deirdre Gogarty, from Drogheda, to become the first woman boxer featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
This is just the sort of showy role – requiring physical transformation and the learning of special skills – to appeal to a hard-working young talent such as Sydney Sweeney. Begrudgers in the United States, pushing back at her sudden fame, have made much of the film’s underperformance at the box office, but few could find realistic fault in her performance.
Bulked up to a pocket dynamo, her hair in dark straggles, Sweeney is consistently convincing as a middleweight with a heavyweight’s piledriver punch. The boxing sequences don’t exactly strive for documentary realism, but they effectively convey the momentum behind each jaw-shattering blow. Elsewhere, she convincingly conveys the desperation of a woman running a gauntlet of cruelty.
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It was the real Christy Martin’s misfortune that much of her life played out to familiar rhythms of abuse and exploitation. As is the way with contemporary cinema, Ben Foster, a genuine heartthrob, wears a combover wig and fat padding as an unlovely personality who, in earlier years, would have been given to a bald character actor.
He presents James V Martin, who lured the then Christy Salters away from her girlfriend and into an unhappy marriage, as an exploitative thug of the old school, at home to drugs, porn and insane jealousy.
Nobody is much at fault in Christy. Merritt Wever is spectacularly odious as a mother who responds to Christy’s complaints about spousal abuse by accusing her of being on drugs. Katy O’Brian is charismatic as the loyal girlfriend who returns when she is most needed.
[ Humourless raging against Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle jeans ad is pointlessOpens in new window ]
The problem is that, until the closing 15 minutes, the film traces the same path as too many (sad and true) stories before it.
Happily, the inevitable redemption is handled with great vim and a shameless determination to cause audiences to punch air and dab eyes. Only those with the coldest of hearts will be able to resist.
In cinemas from Friday, November 28th
