At a festival where the focus is usually on the many micro and macro systemic wrongs in America, there’s something unusually uplifting to find a Serious Issues movie that hinges on something that actually works. Director Adam Meeks came across a rare piece of good news in the hellscape that is the opioid epidemic: the Ohio drug courts that help to rehabilitate addicts through a system of non-judgmental support and a strict, yet not unforgiving, schedule.
His feature debut Union County – an extension of a 2020 short – shows the positive outcome of treating addiction as a problem to be solved, rather than a lifestyle choice to be demonised.
Meeks’ keenness to remain grounded and authentic, unlike so many other adjacent melodramas, led him to employ non-actors who were in the program at the time. The film opens with a series of real participants presenting to the judge – warm and invested – which then makes it slightly jarring to see British actor and Marvel survivor Will Poulter stand up, a reminder that we’re not actually watching a documentary. To his credit, as Cody, Poulter, disappears quickly and smoothly into his surroundings (the actor embedded himself within the community before filming began). The film follows Cody’s story in a minor key, the quotidian journey of adjustment – finding a job, keeping to a routine – and his relationship with his foster brother, played by Noah Centineo, who is also in the program.
Like many a hushed Sundance indie, it’s a story told very quietly, Poulter’s character sometimes close to mute. The film mostly comes to life when we return to the real people of the program and hear snippets of their struggles, which are raw and fascinating; one woman explains how being off drugs has revealed to her a wider range of emotions than the extreme highs and lows to which she has grown accustomed.
A question I often ask myself when watching a film about something as real as this is: would a documentary have done a better job? Here, when we are brought so intimately close to the truth of the story, it’s hard to fully see what a narrative take adds. Cody’s story and how it unfolds is deliberately slow and flat, as many such stories obviously are – but it’s almost too reserved, at times a little plodding. Union County is an extremely withholding film and, without dipping into histrionics or cliche, I could have done with a little more meat on the bones.
The most convincing argument for narrative over documentary comes in the form of Poulter himself. He’s given the merest whisper of a character but he does so much with it, humanising a stereotype and slowly adding some emotional heft to his lowkey arc. He’s understated but not to the point of being absent; one can see his determination, fear, frustration and ultimately pleasure at his own sobriety. It’s a hugely affecting performance, and a scene of him breaking down near the end shows off some pretty astonishing natural emotion from an actor who hasn’t really had a lead of this size to date. His Warfare co-star Centineo has far less to do but does a solid enough job of channelling a young Mark Ruffalo circa You Can Count on Me.
If Union County serves as proof that Poulter deserves more substantive work and shines a light on people in a remarkable system, then it’s more than worth the choice to go docudrama over drama. But I still craved more of the real people – the put-upon addiction therapist, the chatty judge, the father gaining custody after a marriage of dual addiction – all stories that we hear a little of, but I could have done with so much more.
Union County is screening at the Sundance film festival and is seeking distribution
