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Reviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
UNION SQUARE
Following seven homeless, heroin addicted twenty-somethings who populate Union Square and
its surrounding neighborhood, the feature-length documentary Union Square does not shy
away from the vicious cycle that traps addicts: beg, borrow, steal, use, beg, borrow, steal, use....
And that, unfortunately, is the basic structure for this stark, straightforward video of young
addicts living and hustling on the streets of New York. Divided by title cards into thematic
sections, the doc cuts from one character to the next as they address the camera and, sometimes,
one another. While capturing the essence of their lives, the video rarely ventures beyond the
tedium that dominates their daily existence and too often gets bogged down in verbal whining
about hard-luck lives.
Reflecting the addicts' never ending cycle of shooting up several times a day (just to keep from
getting sick), Union Square is chock full of close-ups of dirty needles piercing collapsing
veins. For the squeamish, these scenes may prove gut wrenching. But the discomfort they elicit is
not so much physical as psychological. The power of addiction is so strong that viewers are apt to
feel just as helpless as the addicts themselves. And we, as the audience, loose hope that the lives
of these young people will ever improve.
Union Square is most affecting when we hear about their family histories, self-doubt and
painful self-acknowledgment that they are lost and alone. Director Szklarski certainly worked
hard to earn their trust, no easy feat, but he overly relies on interview after interview, some of
which are poorly miked and composed. What results is a rather lengthy film that contains some
meaningful insight into the sad and dismal lives of these young adults strangled by their own
addiction. Tina DiFeliciantonio,
director/producer (Emmy and Sundance Grand Jury Prize winning Girls Like Us
and the National Emmy Award winning Living With AIDS)
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