Sugar

Miguel Santos is a young pitcher coming up through a baseball academy in the Dominican Republic. His teammates call him Sugar. A contract arrives from America and he is sent to a minor league club in Iowa. The problem he meets there is not baseball: he has no English, cannot eat the food, the host family cannot understand him, and the pain in his arm is getting worse. Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck write and direct, in their second film after Half Nelson. Algenis Perez Soto plays Miguel. He was not a professional actor; the directors found him through a wide search in Santo Domingo, and his baseball background decided the casting. What the film does is invert the sports narrative. In the standard form the player rises, is injured, returns and wins. Here Miguel chooses another life at a certain point, and the film does not present that as defeat. The final section takes place in New York, outside baseball entirely. It played Sundance in 2008 and drew attention for putting an immigration story inside a sports film. Who it is for: viewers who like sports films that leave the mould, and stories about migration. Who it is not for: anyone waiting for a baseball triumph. The film deliberately slows down, and the last half hour is nearly silent.