'Sugar' hits a home run

Sugar is a near-great movie with qualities more unusual than some all-time classics. It resists cliche at every turn and puts something solid in its place: raw yet controlled observation that gives the film the form of a flexing muscle.

The writing-directing team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck tell the fresh, enlivening story of a baseball player, Miguel "Sugar" Santos (Algenis Perez Soto), who progresses from a Dominican Republic training camp to spring training in Arizona and then to Single-A ball in Bridgetown, Iowa.

Sugar ignites a healthy rooting interest in its good-hearted pitcher's fight to fulfill his promise and raise his family's quality of life. But as Boden and Fleck train their camera on Sugar's ever-shifting face, the movie goes beyond adrenaline and heartbreak.

Many a great sports film uses the athletic trials of its protagonist to test whatever he has in him. Most spectacularly, the title character of The Hustler has to discover that essential mix of human understanding and confidence that divides a winner from a loser.

But Sugar exists a galaxy away from the sports-fiction universe of courage and defining moments. It's about a boy-man of a pitcher finding himself gradually, through wild pitches, strikes and errors, whether on the mound or in life. He's Hemingway-esque in the sense that when something feels right to him (not merely "gratifying" or "exciting"), it usually is right.

The filmmakers and first-time actor Soto, a real find, express Sugar's insecurities so intimately, his story transcends the problems of an innocent tiptoeing through an alien culture. Sugar is, in extremis, the tale of all young men beset by fragile egos and uncertainty.

In the early scenes, when Sugar lets himself muse about the freedom of life beyond training and the lure of home, Soto conveys the conflict between immediate gratification and long-term fulfillment that afflicts all ballplayers.

He's more vulnerable than ever when he's called up to the minors, and this is where Boden and Fleck's dramatic preparation pays off. At the beginning, it's charming and comical to hear Sugar and his fellow ballplayers learn English phrases by rote. But in Iowa, he can transcend language and cultural barriers only when he's streaking as a pitcher.

When the pressure gets to him and he loses confidence, the movie captures the unattractive attributes of youth. They include petulance, premature desperation and the unhealthy competition that can taint partnerships or friendships. Yet you never lose your faith in Sugar as a good guy struggling to maintain his virtue.

He develops an authentic combination of distance and intimacy with the elderly baseball fans (played by Ann Whitney and Richard Bull) who house and feed him, and introduce him to their sweet, religious granddaughter (Ellary Porterfield). Unfortunately, she's not fully conscious of all her good vibrations.

With lots of canny comedy, the film dramatizes the gap between a Dominican Republic man and America's mall, farm and church cultures. It brings home the elements of exploitation in an American baseball system that snaps up young men from beyond our shores and doesn't supply them with a safety net.

But the movie never detours into melodrama. When it takes an abrupt swing that resets Sugar to an unpredicted destiny, it turns out to be a home-run stroke. Sugar, we learn, will always do his best work with his hands, whether or not they're attached to a ball and glove. It's the perfect ending for a movie that's gloriously handmade.

Sugar

( Sony Pictures Classics) Starring Algenis Perez Soto. Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. Rated R for language, some sexuality and brief drug use. Time 120 minutes.