Sugar
For a young man growing up in the shanty towns of Dominica, two career opportunities seem the likeliest prospects when it comes to finding work...
… selling mobile phones is one. Playing baseball is the other.
No prizes for guessing which career path 19-year-old Miguel Santos (Algenis Perez Soto) opts for when the US scouts come calling. Miguel – nicknamed “Sugar” – has a peach of a right arm. Along with two dozen of his peers – this year’s crop – he is issued a temporary work visa and sent to the US minor leagues for the summer. That’s where his future will be decided.
Cast details
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Top rated films View all Sugar (2008) 
Half Nelson (2006) 
Sugar lands up in Iowa, playing for the (fictional) Kansas City Knights. He is given a room on a Midwestern farm where the elderly couple (Richard Bull and Ann Whitney) are baseball fanatics and down home Christians. They show him every kindness, take him to church, and work with him on his minimal English. They also have a granddaughter (Ellary Porterfield), who could be a prospect of another kind.
A couple of years ago writer-director team Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden came up with a startling, fresh variation on the classroom movie, Half Nelson.
Their follow-up has no more in common with most sports movies than Half Nelson had with Grange Hill. For a start, we scarcely see the outcome of any of the games. In an environment where winning is everything that’s a radical gesture.
Fleck and Boden’s approach is naturalistic and self-effacing. They shy away from melodrama, preferring to observe how relationships develop and perceptions shift in subtle, incremental scenes.
Sugar: Algenis Perez Soto
If Ryan Gosling gave an electrifying performance in Half Nelson, newcomer Soto is equally central to Sugar, and just as compelling, but in an entirely different register. Gosling’s character was a talker, articulate and self-dramatizing. Soto’s scarcely speaks English. He is alone and bewildered in a world unlike any he has known before. Yet his face is an eloquent index of the conflicted emotions he experiences as his pitching form fluctuates and his confidence sags.
Refreshingly, Fleck and Boden resist the temptation to caricature the Midwesterners. These are plain, decent folk who mean well, but whose own life experience is too narrow to truly understand what their guest is going through.
So don’t be put off if you’re not into baseball. The film is really about immigration and economic exploitation; that, and a young man finding his feet in the world. Truth be told, it’s an anti-sports movie, at least in the cutthroat competitive sense that we usually see. In A League of Their Own Tom Hanks insists that “there is no crying in baseball”. Well, you might find a lump in your throat before this fine film is done.
Reviews
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Critics' reviews (6)
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[A] film of rare intelligence, beauty and compassion....Boden and Fleck have an easy, unhurried style, which suits this story well, especially in capturing the lilting rhythms of a minor-league baseball game on a balmy summer night
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The sustained delicacy of SUGAR's tone and its layered explorations of a unique milieu make this a moving and memorable effort from one of indie cinema's most promising young filmmaking teams
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[A] wise and lovely new film....Infused with a deep affection for baseball, the rhythms of which are nimbly captured by a narrative pace and editing style that quicken and relax as necessary
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Most helpful members' reviews (3)
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2 out of 3 people found this review helpful
Supprisingly good!
This film had everything going against it for me. It's got baseball in it, it's an emotional drama, it's mostly in Spanish and subtitled. However, I know a few people from the Dominican Republic (some now in the USA) so I figured I'd see what it's all about. I'm so glad I did! It is an honest portrayal of imigration and goes some way to explaining some of the reasons behind it. The film felt slow at times and it's quite heavy going in parts but I was completely engrossed! The excellent performance of the lead actor and the thought provoking power of the story of a normal guy trying to find his own way in the world really kept me hooked in a way I never expected. I've heard people say this film is anti baseball or anti American but It's hard to know if it is pro or anti anything by the end in my opinion. It seems very much left up to the watcher to decide. If you're wavering about the subtitles and genre/story... hovering over that rent button. Then click it and give this a go. Hopefully you will be as supprised as I was.
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1 out of 1 person found this review helpful
Not Great
This movie is not a great watch. It's extremely slow, you find yourself waiting for something to happen!! Anything!! It's abit frustrating, and abit of a disappointment. Also the reviews are very misleadng, they make it sound like it's worth a watch. Slightly boring movie, subtitles are annoying and acting is God Awful.
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1 out of 1 person found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
good
not bad when u get in 2 hit good story
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Most recent members' reviews (2)
View all -
1 out of 1 person found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
good
not bad when u get in 2 hit good story
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Sugar = Fantastic
You don't need to be a baseball fan to love this film. Very well made.
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2 out of 3 people found this review helpful
Supprisingly good!
This film had everything going against it for me. It's got baseball in it, it's an emotional drama, it's mostly in Spanish and subtitled. However, I know a few people from the Dominican Republic (some now in the USA) so I figured I'd see what it's all about. I'm so glad I did! It is an honest portrayal of imigration and goes some way to explaining some of the reasons behind it. The film felt slow at times and it's quite heavy going in parts but I was completely engrossed! The excellent performance of the lead actor and the thought provoking power of the story of a normal guy trying to find his own way in the world really kept me hooked in a way I never expected. I've heard people say this film is anti baseball or anti American but It's hard to know if it is pro or anti anything by the end in my opinion. It seems very much left up to the watcher to decide. If you're wavering about the subtitles and genre/story... hovering over that rent button. Then click it and give this a go. Hopefully you will be as supprised as I was.
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1 out of 1 person found this review helpful
Not Great
This movie is not a great watch. It's extremely slow, you find yourself waiting for something to happen!! Anything!! It's abit frustrating, and abit of a disappointment. Also the reviews are very misleadng, they make it sound like it's worth a watch. Slightly boring movie, subtitles are annoying and acting is God Awful.
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1 out of 1 person found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
good
not bad when u get in 2 hit good story
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So much more than a sporting story
I was enthralled by this film. It covers so many different issues and manages to be totally authentic and thought-provoking with every one of them. Yes it's a sporting film - and a very good one - but it's just as much a film about the loneliness of an immigrant on his own in a strange land. There was so much scope for cliche in this story, yet the production team delivered their own version of Sugar's deadly swerve-ball by avoiding every one. Also missing were lazy caricatures with wonderful, textured performances from everyone from stars to extras. If you liked Half Nelson - and I appreciate why it would have been too slow a burner for some - you have to see this. Interest in baseball not necessary!
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Sugar = Fantastic
You don't need to be a baseball fan to love this film. Very well made.
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Critics' reviews (6)
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[A] film of rare intelligence, beauty and compassion....Boden and Fleck have an easy, unhurried style, which suits this story well, especially in capturing the lilting rhythms of a minor-league baseball game on a balmy summer night
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The sustained delicacy of SUGAR's tone and its layered explorations of a unique milieu make this a moving and memorable effort from one of indie cinema's most promising young filmmaking teams
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[A] wise and lovely new film....Infused with a deep affection for baseball, the rhythms of which are nimbly captured by a narrative pace and editing style that quicken and relax as necessary
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It's a beautifully made film about a young man's journey of self-discovery....SUGAR is as good as it is because of the care and skill writer-directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck bring to it
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Algenis Perez Soto, a young baseball player in his acting debut, embodies Sugar with a natural sincerity....Baseball is only the backdrop, not the subject. This is a wonderful film
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[T]his is a sports drama of total originality, as well as the most authentic inside view of the immigrant experience the movies have given us in quite a while...