Jardín de los sueños

Sugar

Crit

Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, the husband-wife creators of Half Nelson, combine baseball and immigrant mythologies without ever striking a clichéd note. Algenis Pérez Soto, a nonactor player who really is from San Pedro de Macoris, perfectly conveys the eroding confidence of a player who has never failed before being dropped into a different baseball world and, not incidentally, small-town Iowa. And even we immigrants from that region can relate to his difficulties as a first-time MetroCard user. Pay close attention to the number he wears the last time we see him in uniform.

I think, though I haven't been able to establish for certain, that the first-time actor who plays Álvarez and was the film's baseball consultant, is the same José Rijo who pitched, sometimes brilliantly, for the Reds in the late '80s and early '90s.