Union Square (2003)
Critic Reviews
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100
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Film Threat Phil Hall
A raw, brutal, hypnotic journey into the world of seven heroin addicts who barely survive on the streets of New York City. It is a film of great sadness and pain.
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75
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Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
The material is vivid and harrowing, although the movie provides little analysis or larger-scale context.
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75
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New York Post V.A. Musetto
It's depressing as hell. While most of the seven say they want to beat the habit and become productive citizens, only one, Ron, follows through successfully.
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70
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Village Voice Laura Sinagra
The total effect, of course, is abject sadness as we helplessly watch each enact a unique anti-success story in an inverted reality show.
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60
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Variety
Its unvarnished look at life in the slow lane exerts a hypnotic fascination that could hook reality mainliners.
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50
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New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
A moving film but not, to be frank, an entirely memorable one.
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50
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L.A. Weekly John Patterson
Without a well-delineated political or social framework, Union Square offers little that we didn't already know.
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40
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TV Guide Magazine Ken Fox
Like its seven subjects, it can't see past the immediate demands of addiction, and the film becomes a seemingly endless string of scenes depicting shooting up, nodding out and waiting around for the next fix.
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40
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The New York Times Dave Kehr
Mr. Szklarski doesn't seem to have a strong point of view on his material. Too often, the film drifts into a kind of passive voyeurism, offering the unhappy spectacle of these wasted lives without perspective and without hope.
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30
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Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis
Far more troubling than the documentary's lack of data and analysis, its refusal to pose even basic questions -- whether, for instance, the so-called war on drugs is a total farce -- is the sense that these seven lost souls are principally on display for our viewing displeasure.
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