Portrayals of sisters are not rare in film; in fact, they are practically a cherished tradition. The sisterly relationship in Nancy Savoca’s Union Square is anything but typical. In the world of writer/director Savoca and her commanding actors Mira Sorvino and Tammy Blanchard, sisters are estranged, demanding, forgiving, funny, hypocritical and volatile.
Our first introduction to Lucy (Academy Award®–winner Sorvino) is through one of the best New York City-shopping-while-talking montages ever captured on film. Then, suddenly (and loudly), something changes, and Lucy finds herself somewhere she has never been: in her sister’s apartment off Union Square. The apartment is as spare, disciplined and New Age as Jenny (Blanchard) is herself. Jenny is stunned to see Lucy on her doorstep and, what’s worse, unable to keep her out — Lucy has decided that today is the day she needs her sister back.
It’s bad timing for Jenny, though: her future in-laws are due to visit, and she has not been completely forthcoming to her fiancé about her tumultuous upbringing in the tougher reaches of the Bronx. Lucy, a chain-smoking, rayon-wearing embodiment of everything Jenny is trying to flee, has carried the family baggage for a long time. However ill-timed, an emotional crack-up is pending, and it looks like it’s going to happen on Jenny’s ecru-coloured couch.
Cinematic game-changer Savoca rolls up her sleeves and digs deep into some of the most combustible family issues, such as identity, sibling rivalry and memory. Sorvino and Blanchard, despite their outward differences, are immediately believable as sisters. They effortlessly capture the emotional shorthand of close siblings — including the blood-borne ability to drive each other into instant, incendiary rage.
Each of these women needs the other in this moment of destruction and reconstruction. As is often the case in family dramas, it is only through the late appearance of another relative (memorably portrayed by Patti LuPone) that they can see themselves, and each other, for who they really are. –TIFF
