Directed By Adam Meeks

Starring – Will Poulter, Noah Centineo, Elise Kibler

The Plot – Assigned to a county-mandated drug court program, Cody Parsons (Poulter) embarks on the tenuous journey toward recovery amidst the opioid epidemic in rural Ohio.

This film is currently not rated

Union County – Official Trailer – Oscilloscope Laboratories HD

POSITIVES

Whether intentional or not, so many films pertaining to the plunging pratfalls of addiction and possible recovery feel preoccupied with the kind of meandering melodrama that makes them feel exploitative, and while Union County certainly isn’t free from disappointing outcomes in the depths of its characters, it’s stabilized gracefully by the kind of respect and tastefulness that Adam Meeks lends to its helming, crafting an intimately tender and authentically raw experience that values empathy above entertainment. For his feature length directorial debut, Meeks effectively fires on all cylinders, not only in conveying an insightfully articulate message of urgency for the state of rehabilitation in small towns conflicted by exploratory resources, but also a rich depictive balance of traumatic forgiveness for the user and their closest loved ones, with regards to the choices of the former impacting the latter. Meeks’ most compelling moments are certainly those quietly understated scenes of isolated introspection for Cody and the atmospherically resonating heaviness that follows him everywhere, illustrating to the audience that indulging triggers can happen in any form, be them people, environments, or unrepaired relationships, but also an appealing ambiguity in the design of the character, that keeps us at an arms length from ever understanding him, in order to accurately read if he has in fact turned a proverbial corner, at any given moment. Because Meeks’ exposition is only conjured in small and sporadic doses, throughout minimally deposited conversations between characters, literally anything feels possible in out lack of understanding the character’s actions, and while the deliberate storytelling pacing choices ultimately requires more patience from the audience, in order to articulate the monotony of everyday routines that could see Cody seeking out an edgier outlet, it outlines a very realistic feeling to those unfamiliar to addiction to immerse themselves in, cementing a film that values the resiliency of humanity above all else, especially while subscribing entirely to the aforementioned honesty that Meeks lays out for the execution, making this look and feel like a dissection of addiction in documentary format. It attains this artistic merit in a lot of ways, but mainly the established setting of Bellfontaine, Ohio, which is filmed on-location to the movie’s production, but also the integrally enlightening decision to utilize as many real-life addicts as scene extras. On the former, the small town rural setting does give the environments this undefined atmospheric boredom that certainly makes drug binges feel inevitable with characters incorporating tediously a life of work and meetings, with little else, but it also puts to rest the idea that dealer outlets only take place in big cities among loaded pockets, and considering the cinematography from Stefan Weinberger takes ample time framing out the desolate landscapes and weathered surroundings, it gives its depiction this lived-in kind of quality that doesn’t feel manufactured cinematically, where a hometown boy like Meeks sees a conscientiously artistic opportunity to exploit recovery from the very ground level, where the stakes of Cody’s irreparable decisions feel very realistically frazzled, courtesy of a defined history of relapsing. As for the aforementioned addict extras, Meeks is wise enough to keep the story distinctly on Cody, so as not to overstep his boundaries on each of their individualized conflicts, but when they’re called to the forefront of the framing, it’s to unload the same kind of repetitious speeches and reprimanding that they’ve probably gone through thousands of times, and as a result, the film attains an effortless authenticity factor that doesn’t feel staged or rehearsed to illicit drama unnaturally, instead opting for first-hand accounts where the proof in the proverbial pudding comes from those tales of devastation and despair that no theatrical actor could live deliver with the experience of regretful memories in tow. For the few moments of dramatic unloading that the film does contain, it sedates intensity and theatrics for realistically grounded confrontation and consequences that surmise disappointment in the same ways that familial characters feel for their loved ones being embattled in such painful purgatory, imbedding not only the difficulty of recovery, but also the expunging of the passage of time, where days, weeks, and months can’t be effectively gauged by a movie where a majority of its characters don’t adhere to everyday realities. As a result, the movie unloads devastating bombshells in the fashion that audiences are outside sources rather than the eyes and ears of their established protagonists, particularly during phone calls and court hearings that rely upon character responses rather than first-hand experience, ultimately keeping audiences on the edge of their seats without a reliable outlet to comprehend the consequences that could be coming to them at any time. If these meaningful components weren’t enough, the performances from fictionally written characters are soulfully stirring and remarkably impressive, particularly Will Poulter and Emily Meade, who each evoke such realistically gripping portrayals of their respective characters, at opposite sides of substance abuse. For Meade’s nuanced rendering of Cody’s sister Katrina, there’s so much about the evidential body language of the actress that feels ripe with the remorselessness of past events, specifically one where Cody’s selfish actions influenced someone just as close to her, and while Meade is obviously relegated to a supporting role to Poulter’s lead protagonist, I found her coldly calculating actions towards Poulter to be among the movie’s most insightful moments, where her anger and lack of faith in her on-screen brother comes across unmistakably as a mother with far too much to lose to let Cody back in again. Poulter’s Cody is nothing short of brilliant, especially in attaining seemingly unreachable empathy for a character wholeheartedly responsible for the entirety of unloaded grief supplanted to anyone who comes into direct contact with him. Poulter inflates the lungs of this character with quietly reserved actions that make the louder moments of vulnerability feel all the more impactfully resonating, but even in those rare moments when he opens up, such as to a romantic interest played by Elise Kibler, there’s profound pieces of a past personality that are poking and prodding to get out, where Poulter says so much with the yearning of an uncapitalized look, or the fear from some set-in realization of relapsing, that can feel triumphant and tragic under the same fall swoop, and if there were any lingering doubts that Poulter isn’t one of the very best adaptable actors in the business today, his transformational work as Cody silences the speculation.

NEGATIVES

Scoffing at anything contemptuously in this film isn’t sure to lend me any admirers any time soon, but there are some detracting elements to the movie’s execution that left my vested interests lingering in the extent of its 92-minute runtime, beginning with the deliberately sauntered pacing that stretches some scenes much further than needed, in order to convey its intentional point. While I’m not exactly someone who has an issue with slow-burn storytelling, I never felt that the ends of a second half climax justified the means of a first half where it takes a bit longer to invest in the character of Cody, courtesy of the lack of exposition that can’t be assessed until much later, and while I was never bored throughout the film, I can say that my patience was tested in the repetitious outline of its structure, leaving me wishing for a bit more urgency in the consistency of the movie’s editing, which still felt a bit overlong for such a minimal runtime. Beyond the pacing, the romantic angle involving Elise Kibler’s Anna not only feels sacrificially rushed in the building of its importance to both Cody and the film, but also unsatisfyingly superfluous in its eventual resolution, wasting away the only arc in the entire film that supplanted any kind of varied emotional dynamic compared to the rest of the characters. Why this unfortunate aspect irritates me so much is because the chemistry between Poulter and Kibler certainly mesmerizes during intimately honest conversations that feel enticing above all else, but beyond that something substantially on the other side of positivity for Cody to strive for, and considering it’s absolved nearly as quickly as it was introduced to the enticement of the audience, it fails to ever find an exploratory avenue to maintain drive throughout the movie’s second half, in turn wasting away a charismatically comforting performance from Kibler, who more than holds her own against Poulter’s screen dominance. Lastly, though a personal choice to my own preferences, I think the script misses a major opportunity to convey the lack of governmental funding behind rehabilitation programs, which in turn could’ve evoked deeper conversations about societal reception towards addicts feeling so flat in 2026 more than any other previous time in history. While it’s not exactly Meeks responsibility to shed a light on the realities of the state of rehabilitation, the script unintentionally asks a question that it rarely has interests in answering, in that is Cody and the other addicts relapsing a sign of budgetary limitations, or do some addicts simply require a more hands-on experience? It’s a duo of thought-provoking questions that I wish the movie was more interested in answering, even on a tacked-on level, and it keeps the film and its scope feeling consequentially condensed, courtesy of its inability to stretch the scope into a bigger and bolder conversation.

OVERALL
Union County is an understatedly tender directorial debut for Adam Meeks, whose somberly stirring drama about the everyday pratfalls of addiction and corresponding relapse paints a deeply empathetic picture, and one that is admirably authentic in the ways that it emanates from conflicted communities with some of its ailing addicts in tow. While the film’s deliberate pacing will inevitably leave this story uncompelling for some, the enigmatically enticing career-best work from Will Poulter takes his and the movie’s talents to a whole other level, offering a humbling and humanistic approach to disease defining that doesn’t require shameless exploitation.

My Grade: 7.8 or B