Sugar

From the same duo that gave us the fine film Half Nelson, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, comes Sugar, an earnest if not exactly compelling story about a young man from the Dominican Republic who dreams of becoming a Major League pitcher in the United States.

Sugar (he is so-called because, variously, he is sweet with the ladies, he loves desserts, or he has a sweet knuckle-curveball) is played by Algenis Perez Soto, an amateur actor but apparently a good ballplayer. At the start of the film he is in a baseball academy on his home island, which is run by a big-league team (although many real teams, most notably the Yankees, are mentioned, Sugar's organization is referred to as the Kansas City Knights, though they use the same logo as the real Kansas City Royals). The kids in this academy are being trained in the U.S. way of doing things. In their English-language classes they learn important phrases like, "I got it," "fly ball," and "home run," in addition to knowing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." These young men grew up in near poverty, and a trip to the States and pro ball is their ticket to prosperity. For Sugar, his entire family is waiting for him to make it.

In this respect, the film closely resembles Hoop Dreams, the stunningly brilliant documentary from 1994 about high-school kids who aspire to basketball greatness. I'm sure in all parts of the world, wherever there are well-paid professional athletes, there are hundreds of kids whose futures bank on their making it against long odds. For those of the Dominican Republic, this dream is in baseball, as they make up a disproportionate number of Major Leaguers from such a small island.

Sugar does make it to spring training, in Phoenix. Immediately language problems beset him--he only knows how to order French toast, for example. Then he is assigned to a Single-A level minor league team in a small town in Iowa, which might as well be the moon for him. He lives with a host family, who would seem to have sprung full-blown from Grant Wood's American Gothic painting. I would like to think these people are caricatures, but I haven't spent enough time around Iowans to be sure. Sugar struggles to fit in, befriending a Stanford grad on his team (who introduces him to the story of Roberto Clemente) and developing a crush on his host family's teenage granddaughter, who belongs to a proselytizing Bible group.

After getting to a strong start in the season, Sugar endures some set-backs, mostly stemming from an ankle injury, and eventually the story takes a turn that lands him in New York. It is here that I really lost a lot of respect for the film. I understand why the filmmakers did this, but to me it was completely out of character for Sugar to do it. It was as if Boden and Fleck made their character conform to their plot, rather than letting their character dictate the story. In any event, Sugar finds life in New York much easier to navigate (he is overjoyed when the subway card machine has a Spanish-language option) and things settle to a measured resolution.

Sugar is told with a lot of restraint. This is not an exposé, there are no villains, there is no ax to grind. Watching this film is a lot like watching a game in late August between two teams who are out of the pennant race--it can be enjoyed for its simple pleasures, but it has no bearing on the standings. To overwork the metaphor, Sugar is a clean single up the middle, but not a home run.