Challenging notions of what both a boxer and domestic violence survivor look like, Christy tells the story of the most successful female fighter of the 90s. Christy Martin signed with Don King, fought on a card with Mike Tyson, and graced the cover of Sports Illustrated, all while enduring hell at home. Taking on the title role, it’s a chance for Euphoria and Anyone But You star Sydney Sweeney to ditch her glamorous image. Having shown herself to be a versatile, committed actress (check out the superb Reality), the physicality and complexity of Christy as a character gives Sweeney the opportunity to push herself further.

Sporting an unflattering brown mullet and bulking out for the part, Sweeney plays the trailblazing Christy over two decades, starting at 21. After her conservative parents, Joyce and Johnny (Merritt Wever and Ethan Embry) confront her over a relationship with a female peer (Jess Gabor), Christy begins sleeping with her much-older coach James Martin (a genuinely sinister Ben Foster), a spiteful and controlling man, who she eventually marries. As she rises to the top, Christy eschews feminism and aggravates opponents by playing the perfect housewife, but the fall back down is brutal.

Christy is helmed by Australian filmmaker David Michôd, who has intermittently impressed but never really hit the heights of his blistering debut Animal Kingdom. Michôd is great at creating discomfort in Christy’s early scenes, where his young protagonist is stigmatised by her family and exploited by her coach. What is less impressive is the sometimes clichéd dialogue and the fact that, by skipping so quickly through Christy’s story, the film can feel abbreviated and unsatisfying. However, the final throes pack a fitting punch, in scenes that are powerfully performed by Sweeney.

Christy is shown at BFI London Film Festival, Friday 17–Sunday 19 October; in cinemas from Friday 28 November.