A knockout: Sydney Sweeney in ‘Christy’.
CHRISTY **** (135 minutes) MA
Our beloved Sydney Sweeney knocks it out of the park as the titular character in this stirring biopic chronicling the jagged life of boxer Christy Martin as she fights for her place in her sport while dealing with her violent coach/husband James (Ben Foster).
In what is her most impressive turn so far, a buffed-out Sweeney plays Martin as a defiant athlete determined to succeed in a sexist sports realm, though her grit and fortitude dissolve when dealing with her odious, abusive husband.
Initially, at least. As things worsen, she builds the inner resolve to stand up to her oppressor, a brute who does not like his domestic authority challenged.
Potently directed by co-writer David Michôd (Animal Kingdom; The Rover), who infuses the film with the required realism, the film counters Martin’s success in the ring with the emotional manipulation she suffers at the hands of her husband, her gradual pushback accounting for the film’s main dramatic drive.
Having trained hard and put on weight for the role, Sweeney (also a producer) is totally convincing, with Foster equally so thanks in part to some transformative make-up. Katy O’Brian as rival boxer Lisa Holewyne provides strong support in a tale with plenty to say about the insidious nature of domestic violence.
As good as Christy is, the film has performed very poorly at the US box office, the reaction to which has exposed the withering hypocrisy of the media.
To wit: as we all know, Sydney Sweeney did a few jeans ads for American Eagle that proved so controversial they nearly split the Earth in two. The playfully innocent tagline “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans” roused accusations of Nazi-adjacent eugenics and white supremacy. Wisely, and despite provocation, Sweeney refused to bite.
Yet upon the release of Christy all anyone wanted to harp on about was its box office, not its story or its clear, timely messaging about domestic violence.
So, you make a cheeky 30-second jeans ad and you get labelled a Nazi. You make a two-hour movie about a brave woman standing up to domestic violence and your advocacy on the issue is totally ignored.
Such is the imbecilic state of modern media. Not that more proof was required.
NOUVELLE VAGUE ***1/2 (106 minutes) M
The making of the avant-garde classic Breathless is beautifully rendered in this loving, lovingly made tribute to the French New Wave from writer/director Richard Linklater.
Looking and sounding every frame as though it was made in the late 1950s the film, shot in glorious black-and-white and in the old academy ratio, follows the chequered production of Breathless as film critic Jean-Luc Godard (Guillaume Marbeck, whose insouciant swagger is terrific) becomes part of France’s new cinema movement.
Cineastes familiar with the film and the era are bound to positively swoon at how closely scenes in Breathless have been recreated.
His includes some astounding lookalike casting headed by Zoey Deutch and Aubry Dullin who resemble Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo as closely as is possible without the use of digital assistance.
Also pleasing is the checklist of iconic directors including Francois Truffaut (Adrien Rouyard), Jean Cocteau (Jean-Jacques Le Vessier), Agnes Varda (Roxane Rivière), Eric Rohmer (Côme Thieulin), Roberto Rossellini (Laurent Mothe), Jacques Rivette (Jonas Marmy) and, best of all, the great Claude Chabrol (Antoine Besson).
And to its credit, the film duly acknowledges how these film artists drew on the influence of American cinema, which in turn was influenced by what the French were doing. It’s a nice historical footnote about how film cultures don’t develop in isolation but feed off each other.
Having said all this, one does have to wonder who, beyond your hardcore cineaste, would find the film interesting.
While it seems a film designed to draw the adoration of film critics who will relish all the references, it might well leave others cold.
THE CHORAL ** (113 minutes) M
Things just don’t gel in this try-hard attempt at a feel-good WW1 flag waver about the formation of a choir in a small English village to help boost the morale of the locals suffering from the slaughter on the bloodied battlefields of Europe.
Ralph Fiennes is the choir leader in a tale that seems at war with itself as the staging of a work and the plight of young men being sent to war vie for dramatic attention.
Seems it’s OK to send men off to the killing fields so long as you get the choir right.
This is the fourth collaboration between director Nicholas Hytner and writer Alan Bennett after The Madness of King George, The Lady in the Van and The History Boys. Might be time to take down the shingle.
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