In “Christy,” Sydney Sweeney’s only fighting herself

Considering what happened to the intrepid Christy Martin, the fighter who put women’s boxing on the map in the 1990s and paved the way for countless others in her sport, there is no joy in disliking her Sydney Sweeney-starring biopic, “Christy.” At times, the film is as hokey as they come, a ramshackle project built on half-spun ideas, baffling performance choices, a scatterbrained script and a barrel of old wigs purchased from a defunct cosmetology school’s liquidation sale. In other moments, far rarer ones, “Christy” is briefly moving, a tale of how easily naive self-determination can be manipulated by misogynist scoundrels lurking in the corner of a shadowy boxing gym.

To say these two elements ever meet long enough to spar would be erroneous. Put into the same boxing ring to duke it o