Sugar: Review. By Simon Thompson.

Co -directors Eden Ohayon and Alexandra Nedved, and writing trio Molly Ehrenberg-Peters, Eden Ohayon and Alexandra Nedved’s Sugar, is a bizarre combination of biting social commentary, an awkward comedy of assumptions and surprising sweetness, all wrapped up into a neat little package that somehow never becomes too tonally dissonant across its nine minute running time. 

The plot of Sugar follows Maeve (Molly Ehrenberg-Peters), a broke, down on her luck Brit living in New York. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so Maeve decides to become a sugar baby (a much younger woman who enters into a sexual relationship with a rich elderly benefactor usually out of financial necessity) bringing her into contact with Frank (Larry Pine). 

At first the audience is cued into thinking that the rest of the narrative is going either to be really dark or that they’ve hit the jackpot in toe curling levels of secondary embarrassment. However, through Ohayon, Nedved, and Peter’s script it instead turns into an endearing chat between two disheartened and lonely people. From a comedic standpoint I would describe Sugar as being a mixture between Peep Show, Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Larry Sanders Show.

Just like Peep Show, Sugar makes extensive use of running internal monologues underpinned by a vast undercurrent of bitterness and self-loathing exaggerated to comedic effect. Like Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Larry Sanders Show, the jokes are predicated around awkward social situations where the characters put their feet in their mouths, thanks to them more often than not completely misreading any given social situation that they find themselves a part of. 

Ohayon and Nedved’s direction fits the tone of the story perfectly, balancing both deft technique, as shown by the montage of New York at the beginning, and an understanding of when to dial back, such as during Maeve and Frank’s conversations, which flow realistically with little cutting. Molly Ehrenberg Peters and Larry Pine have strong chemistry on screen, and play off each other nicely as the story develops, both actors understand their respective characters perfectly and bring a naturalistic quality to their performances that compliments the dialogue and tone. 

Overall, Sugar is a well-directed, funny, and likeable short that tells a complete story in just nine minutes, something many films can’t even manage across an hour and a half. 

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