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.
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.