Sugar
A story about baseball, sure, but more about the man who wants to play the game
Tags: Sugar Categories: DVD/TV Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Sep 16th, 2009
I wasn’t prepared for how much I would enjoy Sugar. This fictional film about a baseball player from the Dominican Republic was not just about baseball, but also about the struggle of identity.
Miguel “Sugar” Santos attends a baseball academy, and dreams of making it big, as do all the players. He enjoyas a bit of a celebrity status back home as well, and it is obvious that he is the hope for his family to survive in this poor neighborhood. After a while of becoming familiar with Miguel and his situation, we see that he is invited to Spring Training, to America, where he has the shot that he had been hoping for all these year.
What follows is an unexpected tale of brotherhood, friendship, community, identity, loyalty, expectations, and yes, baseball. Miguel does make the team, but not in the way you might initially expect, and even then it takes a number of turns that don’t sit well with conventional sports movies. It all comes together, however, in a very satisfying conclusion for Miguel and the audience.
Rather than forcing the story, the writing/directing duo of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck instead pace the film like a baseball game, with highs and lows, and you k\never know when the action is going to come from. This all makes the story that much better by allowing the audience to experience Miguel’s story naturally. This isn’t the “rags to riches” story that one might expect, nor is it a “rags to riches to rags” story that is meant to be some big Hollywood style twist on the genre. Instead, the story of Miguel and his association with the sport of baseball is much more realistic.
Special features kick off with some deleted scenes as well as a short interview with the lead actor focusing on the auditioning process. There’s a 15 minute “making of” featurette which is a bit more substantive than the usual fluff pieces we get, as well as another that’s a few minutes shorter looking the film and its impact on the sport in the Dominican Republic.
Sugar is a nice little character drama about following your dreams and what happens when they look to be coming true. If you’re in the mood for the typical sports story, go rent Bull Durham or The Natural. This, however, is a quieter drama more about the player than the sport.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Great character piece as well as a sports movie + Very "un-Hollywood" in style and tone |
9.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
| - Slow to start | |
| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| You don't have to like baseball to like this movie. You do, however, have to like characters and storytelling. | |
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Tags: Sugar
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Sep 16th, 2009 and is filed under DVD/TV Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
