The
Sweet Spot
by Howard Schumann
The success of Latin ball players like Roberto Clemente,
Juan Marichal, and Orlando Cepeda are legend but we never hear about
the hundreds that fail, those who get lost in the system or are simply
unable to handle the pressure of exorbitant signing bonuses or less
than welcoming small town environments. In Sugar,
writer-directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, whose movie Half
Nelson from 2006 won numerous awards, have created a
film about the problems faced by young Latinos in attempting to make
the jump from the comforts of their home town environment to the major
leagues. It is not just a movie about baseball but about what is important
in life.
20-year-old Miguel
Santos (Algenis Perez Soto) is nicknamed "Sugar"-- he says
because he is sweet on the ladies, but others have different opinions.
Sugar is a pitcher whose recently developed knuckle curve ball puts
him ahead of the pack at an American baseball training academy in the
Dominican Republic. He is the idol of his family and the children in
his home town but must compete with hundreds of others like himself
for an invitation to a minor league spring training camp. Though the
baseball academy attempts to teach the fundamentals of the English language,
all the players seem to remember is “home run,”“foul
ball,”“I got it,” and the words to “Take Me
Out to the Ball Game.”
Given his gifts,
Sugar is invited to spring training with the fictional Kansas City Knights
in Phoenix, Arizona. Eventually assigned to a Single-A farm team in
Bridgetown, Iowa, he is light years away from his comfort zone. When
he first sees his posted assignment to Bridgetown, Ia. he asks “where
the heck is Ia (ee-ay)?” Sugar boards with a Midwestern farm family
that has taken in Latino players in the past, but the adjustment is
difficult. He does what is expected -- attends church, eats foods he
is unfamiliar with, and says little. His only companion is Jorge (Rayniel
Rufino), a fellow Dominican on the team who has remained stuck in Single-A
ball because of an injury that refuses to heal.
Soon his problems
with language and customs begin to take their toll. He encounters racial
slurs at a local nightclub and is confused when he receives mixed signals
from the family’s ultra-religious teenage daughter Anne (Ellary
Porterfield). When he is slow to recover from a leg injury sustained
in covering first on a ground ball, his pitching skills begin to suffer
as well. One scene highlights his sense of dislocation as he tries to
make his way through a massive entertainment complex filled with flashing
lights, videogame machines, and bowling alleys. To try to regain his
pitching form, he takes steroids, but it only makes his sense of disorientation
worse.
His manager (Johnny
Marx) is patient but he is paid to produce results and his sensitivity
to Sugar’s situation only goes so far. When Sugar asks teammate
Brad (Andre Holland) what he would do if he could no longer play baseball
and learns that Brad studied history in college, he begins to rethink
exactly what he wants to do with his life. When Jorge heads for New
York after being let go, the film moves in an unexpected direction,
but never loses its intelligence and sensitivity. Soto is a captivating
presence in his first acting role and the fact that he is also a skilled
amateur baseball player gives the baseball scenes an electric authenticity.
While Boden and Fleck show their love of the game, they do not hide
their disdain for its exploitative aspects. No clichéd sports
success story, Sugar is sweet and goes down easy but leaves
a pungent aftertaste.
*
A
middle-aged brother and sister and their families visit their aging
parents on the fifteenth anniversary of their brother Junpei’s
death from drowning while saving another boy. Relationships between
generations are strained, however, and patriarch Kyohei (Yoshio Harada),
a former doctor, does not hide his resentment for his surviving son
Ryoto (Hiroshi Abe), an out-of-work art restorer. Selected as the best
film at the Toronto International Film Festival in a poll of film critics
and bloggers, Hirokazu Koreeda’s Still Walking
is a family-oriented comedy/drama about generational conflict and the
consequences of loss. Unfolding in real time over a twenty-four hour
period, it has been compared to Ozu’s Tokyo Story in
its intimate interchanges that accurately capture the way families relate
to each other, but lacks Ozu’s warmth and subtlety.
The day
is spent with routine activities such as preparing meals and playing
with the small children. Kyohei remains detached and hides in his office,
pretending to be occupied with medical business. He only emerges to
bicker with his wife (Kiki Kinn) and play with his grandson. Ryoto,
who did not look forward to the reunion, is put off by his father’s
disdain for his profession of art restoration and his coolness toward
his new wife Yukari (Yui Natsukawa). She craves acceptance for herself
and her son Atsushi (Shoehi Tanaka) from a previous marriage in which
her husband died. A picture of the deceased Junpei is placed in the
center of the Yokoyama family house reminding Ryoto that whatever he
does, he cannot measure up to Junpei, who was to be his father’s
heir.
He
also notices that his sister Chinami (You) has no such expectations
and her life with her car-salesman husband and two children seems outside
of the range of family conflicts. When the boy that Junpei rescued visits
the family, sneering remarks are made about his bulky frame and lack
of ambition, and old resentments come to the surface. After Chinami
and her family leave, it is clear that Ryoto wishes he had not agreed
to spend the night, but conflicts seem to soften with the passage of
time. Based on a novel by the director and occasioned by the death of
his mother and the discussions of his childhood they had during her
last days, Still Walking has a sense of naturalism and simplicity
that is endearing.
©2008 Howard Schumann
CineScene
