Sugar (2009)

Image credit: Fernando Calzada

DIAMONDS ARE 
FOREVER: Soto leaves his Dominican Republic home to chase his American dream 
on ball fields across the heartland

The writer-director team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck work in a tradition of open-eyed liberal humanism, but they're also shrewd enough to play off expectations of Hollywood 
 heroism. Their first feature, Half Nelson, stoked the audience's desire to see an inspirational-teacher drama before it turned into the tale of a gifted teacher who was a self-destructive crackhead flake. In their second film, Sugar, they set us up for a classic feel-good sports drama about a nobody who triumphs.

The film follows a young pitcher from the Dominican Republic, Miguel ''Sugar'' Santos (Algenis Perez Soto), who has a baby face and a killer corkscrew curve. Drafted into the American minor leagues, with the hope that he'll become a star, he journeys to the strange land of Iowa, where he joins a single-A team and moves in with a genial farm family. Boden and Fleck trace Sugar's story with an almost anthropological eye. The kid barely speaks English (just ordering French toast at a diner is an exotic experience), but he gets plugged into a world of malls and groupies, and Soto plays him with a haunted and captivating thousand-yard stare. Just as we're getting swept up in his field of dreams (and his loss of innocence), Sugar tosses us a major curveball I won't reveal. The film's style is so ''objective'' it's a bit subdued, yet this is a sports drama of total originality, as well as the most authentic inside view of the immigrant experience the movies have given us in quite a while. B+

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