Sugar (2004)

One of my all time favorites.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Just turned 18 young Cliff goes downtown and meets hustler Butch and falls for him. Butch is pretty f**ked up. As an addict his spiral downwards spins off pretty quick, I must add to my comfort and thankfully as the last little snatch of plausibility this film had to offer. Being drawn from stories by Bruce LaBruce one knew what to expect. Thank God his hip hypocrisy when it comes to his own direction was passed to other hands with visible improvement. Though this is not enough.Brendan Fehr's portrait of Butch is good acting, with one misfire I think. A bit too much accent on the likable-because-good-underneath guy. This makes the film implausible, for it steals the comic moments, and gives hints, although not making something work out, either as morality lesson, or letting it be just plainly cynical. Andre Noble's twit undercurrent was spot on, though I am not so sure about his somewhat raging blandness at the end. But this is more the script's blandness.I liked the cinematography, as if it was coming from an early nineties New Queer Cinema feature. But as another reviewer mentions, looking so terrible, although obviously intentional, was unwise, too.Little sis' was the least narcissistic of all people in the film. This does not come off as poignant, but as detrimentally cynical.As most things in the film, betting on weirdness for its own sake. (The scene in the limo, with all the boys getting naked, almost had something of "Shortbus"'s sheen.) There was one properly chilling moment: the two guys at the pool being almost comically terifying.The detail of the fake black nail on Butch's right hand, ah! This is what Bruce LaBruce's punk grit comes down to: have a black nail just to get high.

Yeah, the spoilers are coming...Look, this movie actually had me buying it most of the way through. Butch came across as a sympathetic character and Cliff's naivety made it all the more painful when Butch turned on him. Still, that made sense - Butch doesn't understand a relationship based upon love and doesn't see why turning Cliff into another trick is that big of a deal. His self-destructive spiral afterwards was pretty damn well done, too.What KILLED it for me was after Butch died. Cliff's first boyfriend has just died and within hours of the funeral he aggressively hits on another man and gives him oral in a bathroom? Huh? Look, somebody may justify this by stating "Maybe you just don't get gay culture" or by pointing out that "Sugar" refers to all sorts of addictions and maybe Cliff's addiction is sex. But when you take your most sympathetic, deepest character (Butch) and kill him off and then have the next best character in the movie do something to so completely disrespect him, well, the movie loses points in my book.Even if they had just ended with Cliff in cafe making eye contact with the other guy, it would have been a better end than this. A movie can only be so nihilistic before it loses you, and "Sugar" lost me completely in the last five minutes.And did anybody notice he pretty much abandoned his sister downtown? Just saying.

This movie was really really out there. There was a lot of implied sex in this movie it was ridiculous. Well anyways, I like a movie that's not afraid to show it's true colors. This movie shows the greatest of impacts on one's life. The lost of innocence and the power of friendship. I feel that this movie, (with it's gay implications) really gets a more in-depth feeling of the movies true purpose. Also through the expected ending, and the very cliché plot twists, this movie comes out proving to be more then just a "kill me now" movie. The acting was also quite moving also. This movie could of really used some transition. Every so often the screen would go black, and then everything would be different.

I don't understand the people who say that the movie has no depth. The most in depth character portrayal was of Butch - the hustler who seems like a really good guy underneath. I don't think it is a requirement to have any backstory to actually get this.The movie is also very amusing in parts - you just have to get the humour that is going on. At the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Film Festival showing that I saw, the majority of the audience got the humour and laughed along.In actual fact, you're dosed with the nice and amusing and even heartwarming, and then you get a complete smack in the head when Butch does something to his best buddy. I won't say anymore for fear of spoiling it.I didn't rate this film higher because of a couple of implausible things, such as the little sister (a complete laugh and a half, but implausible nonetheless), and how the film opens. From birthday bash to the streets in minutes. However, I did get the symbolism of the skateboard, which no-one else seems to have noticed or mentioned, and which I thought was rather good.Overall, I enjoyed the film very much, and would recommend it to just about anybody.