Miguel “Sugar” Santos (Algenis Perez Soto) has a devastating
curveball and a million-dollar arm attached to his lanky, 20-year-old
frame. Problem is, he’s the product of a poor upbringing in the
Dominican Republic—an island teeming with young players who are
either on glorious ascents to American baseball’s major leagues, or
wasting away as has-beens in their early 20s, missing purpose and skill
now that a baseball is no longer in their hands. To flee the island and
make it to American baseball is a nearly impossible dream, and it’s at
the center of the absolutely stunning Sugar.
As a rookie for the (fictional) Kansas City Knights organization,
Santos is schooled at a Dominican baseball academy, where his book
learnin’ is traded for an intense baseball education. He’s fed and
clothed, but the limited classroom instruction he receives is in the
English pronunciation of baseball slang (“line drive,” “ground ball”).
It’s a make-or-break structure, where players dream of million dollar
paydays—but more often than not end up back home, futureless and
broke.
Much like the game to which it pays respectful tribute, Sugar is a well-paced, painstakingly deliberate film. Lovingly written and
directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, the duo behind Half
Nelson, Sugar patiently follows Santos from the red dirt
fields of the Dominican baseball academy, to spring training in
Arizona, to a culture-shocked stay in Iowa, and to his final
destination of New York. Like most immigrant rookies caught in the
wheels of an unforgiving system, Santos’ deep-rooted love for the game
he plays is eclipsed by a constant obligation to provide for his
family, and while in the States, his talent is trumped by the vicious
cycle of sports as a business. Sugar is created with both a
precise eye for the intricate details of the game, and a sense of the
immense weight hoisted upon young shoulders.
And while it’s common knowledge that the tired genre of sports
cinema panders in clichés, last-second heroics, and well-worn
life lessons delivered by tenacious underdogs, Sugar steers
clear of all those things. Santos’ success on the mound feels secondary
to his struggles to adapt as a person—a diner scene, where he
labors to grasp the English-language menu, is both instantaneously
memorable and soul-crushingly sad. This is a movie dedicated to
baseball and life—not necessarily in that order—and rare
has there been cinema on these subjects that comes across so truthful,
heartbreaking, and beautiful.