Sugar

The filmmaking team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck follow up the impressive Half Nelson with an ambitious effort to track the progress of a lanky pitcher with prospects, from his native Dominican Republic to a tryout (concentration?) camp in Arizona to a minor league stint as a stranger in the strange land of Iowa to assimilation into the Dominican neighborhoods of NYC. Each of these environments is convincingly sketched, with most of the roles filled by nonprofessional actors whose roles mimic their actual experience. Crucial, of course, was the lead they picked from a roll call of more than 500, to play Miguel, known as “Sugar” for his sweetness on the mound and with the ladies, and he fills the bill admirably. It’s the nature of this story of displacement that the film should be one inexplicable, discontinuous scene after another, and it’s right for us sometimes to be as disoriented as the protagonist we follow. The baseball scenes are unusually convincing and everything is shot with a distinctive visual style. But at one crucial turning point the story defeats one’s expectations, ultimately to good purpose, but from my perspective too abruptly. Interestingly, among the deleted scenes on the dvd was just the one that filled that gap. With that scene put back in I can give this film an unequivocal recommendation, more so if you’re a baseball fan and are curious what’s behind the growing Dominican presence in the game. (2009, dvd, n.) *7* (MC-82)