Union Square

Sara Stewart

MOVIE REVIEW

UNION SQUARE
Running time: 80 minutes. Not rated (language). At the Angelika, Houston and Mercer streets.

You know this person: the woman with the streaky mascara and bad highlights, having a screaming cellphone meltdown in a public place. Mira Sorvino’s Lucy is down from The Bronx for the day, and it’s not going well.

In Nancy Savoca’s “Union Square,” a romantic miscommunication finds Lucy knocking at the door of her estranged sister, Jenny (Tammy Blanchard), whose stringently muted clothing and tone — and preppy fiancé (Mike Doyle) — suggest she’s worked very hard to forget her family ties.

Lucy barges into Jenny’s life, and the film becomes a guessing game about how long her irritated sibling can keep up the genteel facade before the New Yawk accent starts to spill out. Sorvino brings a spark, but neither she nor Patti LuPone, in an amusing cameo, can overcome the clockwork-like plod to the end.

Visiting her sister downtown from The Bronx, Lucy (Mira Sorvino) is having an awful day in “Union Square,” but it’s hard to root for her in this plodding drama, with Michael Rispoli.