Arcadio Bolanos Inspired by Bruce La Bruce's short stories, Tom Palmer's daring film ventures into a world of male prostitution, heavy drugs and depravation.In the first minute of "Sugar" 18-year-old Cliff, the protagonist, stares at a boy kissing his girlfriend. Cliff is there as a voyeur, as his presence irrupts the intimacy of a couple, but he is also there to acquire the necessary visual stimulation to masturbate afterwards. Regarded from the very beginning, the order of the phantasm mediates the relationship between the protagonist and his world.And what world is that? There is the nice house with the white picket fences which conforms reality and there is also the real, which Cliff encounters as he heads downtown and arrives in a place in which prostitution, she-males and drugs are the norm; why is that the 'real'? Because it exceeds and surpasses reality, but at the same time is excrementitiously derived from that reality. It is in this environment that he meets a handsome hustler named Butch.If, according to Lacan, the desire comes from the real as it cannot be fully articulated or tamed by language, then it's understandable that Cliff will bond with Butch through the phantasm. What are the implications? That he doesn't know anything about this male prostitute, and yet he is very attracted to him. Deep inside, Cliff trusts in the possibility of a successful relationship with Butch. But is it possible to maintain a healthy rapport with someone whose motivations remain unclear? Butch considers himself an actor, after all, he has to reenact the fantasies of his clients. He seems to specialize in seriously disturbed individuals that have banned themselves from normal pleasure and instead aim subconsciously for their particular phantasms (the abusive father, the strong macho, the hockey player, etc.). According to Freud not all libido can be transferred into the image, there are limits. The recognition of ourselves and our bodies, in which conscious knowledge is modeled, bears great limitations, because something eludes this primitive libidinal investment that shapes the image of the ideal ego; there is a portion of libido that cannot be transferred into the image, neither in the image of my body nor in the image of my partner, remaining instead invested at the level of one's own body in a non-specular way, avoiding the laws of representation. When Butch's clients rely entirely on this young man to relive their fantasies they fail at obtaining pleasure, because as Freud explains, they're trying to put all their libido in an image, in a specular representation of their past which obviously doesn't work in the present.Perhaps dominated by the real, the clandestine world of drugs and illegal activities, Butch has no option but to keep doing the things he knows how to do best. Cliff's mistake, however, is to enter into this ambit of the real, turning his back on a more familiar (and familial) reality. Cliff sleeps with his friend in the same bed, but they do not touch each other. They masturbate in front of each other, but they do not have sex. Cliff fills the void in his life, his lack of a loving partner, with the phantasm of something that's clearly not there. But what happens when Butch gets violent and crosses the line? Somehow, adopting the phantasm is easy, but when Cliff finds himself occupying the role of the 'object a', when he finds himself turning into Butch's phantasm, an already feeble relationship starts to unravel.

tommilburn I must totally disagree with the previous user comment ("prettylittlelie"). This film is gritty, dark, real...If you find explicit gay sex, drug-taking and so on uncomfortable, then it's probably not for you.The story is captivating. The sexual tension between the two leads is hot. And their shared emotion is tender at times.The journey of Cliff (Andre Noble, who is sadly dead) as he enters the dark underworld is very well told.The previous user comments: "Also, the sex in this movie was just plain gross. Don't get me wrong, not because it's gay, but because I don't need to see close ups of ANYONE'S genitals in a movie. Two guys sitting at a table eating cereal for breakfast and jacking off at the same time, together, while they eat, is just disgusting. I don't care what the excuse is, it's unnecessary. The sex in this movie didn't serve a purpose."This just goes to show that he really didn't get it.If you "don't need to see anyone's genitals in a movie" don't go to one based on short stories by Bruce Le Bruce HELLO??!! The breakfast scene to which he refers shows how the two boys are bonding as their relationship develops. He also says that "the sex didn't serve a purpose" - the movie is about the sex, and the drugs, and the relationships between sex and drugs.And it is clear that he is also a homophobe. Anyone who starts a sentence "don't get me wrong, not because it's gay" obviously has issues...Ignore what he said and see this film!

KedezzericOU Yes Twist was an excellent film. But it was also based on the Charles Dickens play Oliver Twist. This director took gritty scenes that are not based on a classic novel and made them life-like. The characters were well developed and engrossing (if you do not think that a kid can get drugs you are mistaken, i deal with delinquent juveniles for a job). Brandon Ferh's performance was astounding, i was completely in awe. He played the slow decent into complete oblivion with finesse which i hardly see in blockbuster movies anymore. The sex scenes which the first comment was based on were hardly graphic, for that i would watch Queer as Folk. I think the commenter made previous comment from a state of shock about actually seeing homo-erotic scenes. Well it was a homo-erotic story. Get over it.

pickensjrbj I just saw this movie last night, and I loved it. I am not a renowned movie critic, or anything, but I really liked this flick. I thought that the story was pretty good. Gay teens that have been through similar situations will understand. I really enjoyed Brendan Fehr's performance as well as Andre Noble's. I was shocked to learn about Andre's death, and I am sorry to say that I didn't get to experience him as a performer. I have seen none of his movies prior to this film. I heard that this film was based on a number of short stories, and now I am eager to read them. I have had a little experience with the kind of life that was portrayed in this movie, the drugs, the street life for a young gay teen that has no other asset than his youth and his looks. I think that the movie was true to the pain that this kind of life causes. I don't think that I can say anything else, except that I really enjoyed Sugar.