Sugar (USA 2008, 120 min. dir: Anna Boden, cast: Algenis Perez Soto, Rayniel Rufino, Ellary Porterfield)

The Wizard of Oz is about a girl from Kansas who lands in a strange land and wants to go home. Sugar is about a boy from Oz who lands in Kansas and he just wants to go home too.

Oz is the green fields and palm-shaded towns of the Dominican Republic. Sugar is a baseball pitcher good enough to (maybe) be a star. Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico are to ball players what Iowa is to corn. Iowa exports corn and the D.R. and P.R. export young ball players headed for the farm teams for the major league American teams. Playing big league ball is the dream exit from poverty.

Sugar’s landing in Iowa is a little different from Dorothy’s in Oz. She arrives in a house. He steps off a plane and into a station wagon for the drive to his new home. Mom and Pop’s contact with internationalism is hosting a succession of young Dominican and Puerto Rican ballplayers who’ve come to join the local Bridgeport, Iowa team.

Baseball and going to church are about all there is to do here. Sugar can’t speak English. He is black. He is expected to say prayers and take dinner with the family. He’s also expected to keep his eyes off their redheaded daughter. There is no game that will play him out of his loneliness.

So is this a baseball movie? Not really. That is why it is so good. Like Dorothy’s saga, the yellow brick road for Sugar also leads to the Emerald City. But “The City” looks a lot likened York. Miguel gives up baseball for Spanish Harlem and the street life where he feels at home. He won’t be a star, but he’ll join the millions who have made the journey here from his homeland and found some small happiness. If he could speak enough English, he would smile and say, “Not in Kansas anymore.”