Shrewdly taking a micro rather than macro approach to its socio-political issues, Sugar recounts a Dominican Republic pitching prospect’s attempts to make it in the big leagues without resorting to the type of clunky, moralizing commentary that its fish-out-of-water story could easily have indulged in. Exhibiting more delicacy and restraint than their prior Half Nelson, writer/directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck refuse to turn the saga of Miguel “Sugar” Santos (Algenis Perez Soto) into an overarching parable about the immigrant experience, American intolerance, or any of the other big-picture issues that it naturally grazes. Any larger implications are allowed to resound only in the context of Sugar’s specific experiences transitioning from the D.R. to the alien milieu of Bridgetown, Iowa and the Single-A minor league squad that gives him his shot. When Sugar and his Latino teammates get into a scuffle with local white men unhappy about the foreigners dancing with blonde women, the incident may reflect ingrained societal intolerance but, shot with impressive understatement, resonates primarily as an example of Sugar’s estrangement from his environment. And when Sugar watches a TV broadcast of Hurricane Katrina refugees praying in the Superdome, the moment doesn’t conflate Sugar and African-Americans’ plights so much as further hammer home his ignorance about, and disconnection from, his bewildering, racially charged, devoutly religious surroundings.
Instead of aiming to Say Something Important, Boden and Fleck prove content to simply investigate, with equal parts curiosity and sympathy, the pressure, anxiety and profound isolation felt by Latin players trying to snag a rare, highly coveted Major League roster spot. Consequently, their film generally refuses to partake in, or at least linger over, contrived melodrama. From Sugar’s relationship with the granddaughter of the Iowa couple with whom he stays, which fizzles after finally being consummated, to his eventual decision [spoilers] to abandon his team (and dream) after his on-the-diamond productivity beings to falter, Sugar displays an even-tempered poise that serves its sometimes clichéd story well. Though never quite as grimly authentic as The Wrestler, Boden and Fleck’s portrait of their chosen athletic minor-league culture exudes genuineness, from the warm summertime glow that envelops a baseball diamond in the morning, to the professional sterility of the crowded clubhouse. Still, it’s the absence of judgmental lecturing that imbues their material with its modicum of gravity, the balanced array of bigoted, demanding, compassionate and altruistic characters, as well as the script’s refusal to exaggerate the forces at play, creating the impression that Sugar’s destiny is his own to determine.
Admittedly, a few too many narrative echoes, as well as too many plot developments seen countless times before, serve to remind one of the authorial hand guiding Sugar to its finale. Yet even when their tale is hitting familiar notes (high hometown expectations, a mom eager for her son to seize his opportunity, the desperate, futile use of drugs to break out of a slump), the filmmakers’ confidently modest helming – benefiting from their recognition of the harsh truths of baseball dreams, and suitable cynicism about fairy tale endings – allows events to feel, if not fresh, then at least real. Similarly, while musical cues occasionally underline readily apparent emotional shifts within Sugar, their recurring compositions of an in-focus Sugar navigating an out-of-focus landscape (highlighted by a tracking shot through a hotel, restaurant, and bowling alley) express their protagonist’s inescapable language/cultural alienation with subtlety and grace. Those two qualities also typify Soto’s lead performance, which conveys the weight of expectations, the discomfort of transplantation (and its effect on one’s confidence), and the liberation of finding one’s niche in silent, unfussy gestures and glances, culminating in a momentary far-off-stare rife with a longing and disappointment that must be stifled and yet, one senses, will never fully dissipate.
