Caitlin Willis - Sugar

Caitlin Willis
Intro. to Film Studies
9.29.16

Sugar

       
     To briefly touch on the movie's plot, I'll provide a short description. This film depicted a baseball player, Sugar, reigning from the Dominican Republic who was given the opportunity to travel to America to pursue a possible career in the sport he loved. While in America, things get difficult. From extreme competition to injuries to loss of friends, the sport became more of a task than a hobby and Sugar made the decision to leave it all behind and travel to New York to start his life over. He picks up a job at a diner and even goes back to one of his old hobbies, carpentry. He decides to start playing baseball again, but in a less competitive, more recreational way. Things didn't go as we, the audience, anticipated but I feel that in no way does that impact the overall quality of the film.

        This movie changed my perspective on life, as dramatic as that may sound. Typically, we feel that happy endings aren't happy endings unless things go as planned or anticipated. Starting the movie, I figured that he would make it big in the MLB and move his family from the Dominican Republic to America, which is why I was so upset at the end of the movie when things didn't turn out that way. This movie showed me that sometimes ideal isn't really ideal. Sugar ended with him playing on a small baseball team, working a day job, and overall living life as a regular person. It wasn't exactly what I envisioned the ending would be like but it made sense.

        Now I feel as if happy endings don't always have to be what we picture them to be. I was upset that Sugar didn't make it big and wasn't bringing his family along with him but I realized that he wouldn't have been happy in the MLB. He would have been simply existing, not living. At the end of the movie, he was happy. So I learned that a happy ending doesn't have to please everyone, just the person whose ending it is.