Review of Sugar (2008) by Philip P — 02 Sep 2009

Sugar was an amazing film from Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, the duo who brought us the equally excellent Half Nelson. It's unfortunate that this movie got the limited distribution it did, but I was fortunate enough to see it in theaters. It's as much a baseball movie as Raging Bull is a boxing movie. Baseball is merely the context in which to explore social issues and relationships. Not only does it on the surface tell the powerful and emotional story of Sugar's quick rise and fall, but shows that Sugar is not alone. Not alone in his experience coming up out of the baseball "factories" in the DR to the farm leagues in the States, and how that system chews up and spits out more people than those that succeed. Ebert put it best - "For every Sammy Sosa there are a thousand Sugars". Also, anyone familiar with sports writer Dave Zirin, this movie seems to be heavily influenced by his look at the political and economic relationships in sports (one of the characters is reading his book "Welcome to the Terrordome").

This also shows the culture clash and difficulties of the immigrant experience in the US and paints a more complicated picture than just all US citizens are irredeemable bigots. The main, white farm family in Iowa prove the opposite. Anyways, I digress, but it's a real testament to this film, its actors and its film-makers that all this depth is contained in a movie characterized by its subtlety and restraint.