UNION COUNTY
(director/writer: Adam Meeks; cinematographer: Stefan Weinberger; editors: Adam Meeks, Sean Weiner; music: Celia Hollander; cast: Will Poulter (Cody Parsons), Noah Centineo (Jack), Elise Kibler (Anna), Emily Meade (Katrina Parsons), Annette Deao (Annette), Danny Wolohan (Jim); Runtime: 98; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Brad Becker-Parton, Martha Gregory, Stephanie Roush, Faye Tsakas, Sean Weiner, Tim Headington, Theresa Steele Page, Ellyn Daniels, Will O’Connor, Will Poulter; Kindred Spirit; 2025)
“ It tells of a real-life non-judgemental drug program that actually works.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
The Brooklyn-based and Ohio born Adam Meeks’s debut feature is written and directed by him with a keen understanding of the drug addiction problem and the problems it causes for both the person and the public. The indie film’s low-key story is about the ill-effects on many of America’s youth that’s caused by the opioid crisis currently sweeping across the country. This assured feature film, using non-professional actors (real-life participants in an ‘adult recovery court’ drug program) along with professionals, expands on Meeks’s acclaimed short film he made in 2020. It tells of a real-life nonjudgemental drug program that actually works.
The scraggy bearded and disheveled recovering drug addict Cody Parsons (Will Poulter, Brit Actor, the chef on The Bear TV series), serving a prison sentence for drug possession, makes a court appearance in the rural town of Bellefontaine, Ohio in its ‘adult recovery court’ before its real judge. Rather than given more jail time, the court mandates a rehab program for the addict. Also in the same court is his spunky younger foster brother Jack (Noah Centineo), dealing with his heroin addiction, who is given the same rehab sentence. Jack then hooks Cody up with a job in the lumber yard where he works.
The brothers have a sister Katrina (Emily Meade), who is trying to get by without drugs despite living in such a dysfunctional family.
The real-life rehab-program coordinator Annette Deao, acts as herself carrying out her duties. The film, thereby, looks like a fictionalized documentary.
This quality druggie film holds its own with similar-related druggie youth films, as it gets a moving performance by Poulter to bring out its psychological dramatics and it gets across its important message that prison might not be the only or best answer when dealing with the country’s massive and complex drug problem.
It played at the Sundance Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 1/28/2026 GRADE: B
dennisschwartzreviews.com