With SUGAR, filmmaking partners Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck prove that their Oscar-nominated HALF NELSON was no fluke. In following one aspiring young athlete from an academy in the Dominican Republic to minor-league ballparks in the United States, Boden and Fleck haven’t just made one of the best and most honest baseball movies ever--they have also produced an intelligent, humane, and universal portrait of the immigrant experience. Non-actor Algenis Perez Soto plays Miguel "Sugar" Santos, a 19-year-old pitcher who dreams of becoming a major-league baseball star. When Sugar’s newly acquired knuckle curveball begins to find its groove, he is called up to America. But the path to success isn’t easy: Sugar must work his way up from the minor leagues before he is welcomed into the majors. Unfortunately, before that happens, Sugar begins to sense that he doesn’t have what it takes to make it. Rather than let the powers-that-be cut him from the team, he cuts himself and heads to New York City to embark on a new life.

Boden and Fleck pull off something quite miraculous with SUGAR. They have made a movie that retains the spirit of a more classical type of movie while at the same time single-handedly reinventing the sports genre. Unlike most Hollywood efforts, Boden and Fleck aren’t interested in telling the story of a megastar. Their whole point is to focus on an infinitely more common type of athlete: the one who doesn’t rise all the way to the top. Boden’s editing, Andrij Parekh’s cinematography, Michael Brook’s music, and Perez Soto’s performance are all extraordinary. Like its title, SUGAR is very, very sweet.