In Adam Meeks’s new film Union County, Will Poulter stars as Cody, a man recovering from addiction and navigating a court-ordered drug rehabilitation program in rural Ohio. In this exclusive clip from the film, Cody speaks to his sister Kat and begins trying to repair their fractured relationship.
“At that stage, Cody has a decent amount of time clean within the program, and I think what he’s doing there is to rush through the natural order of things and he’s taking a premature step towards reconnecting with family,” says Poulter. The scene, between Poulter’s Cody and Emily Meade’s Kat, takes place in their childhood home. “As much as she appreciates the sentiment, it’s very hard for her to understand him and trust him at that stage. I think Cody, in that moment, is naively contending with the idea that he is rushing this and he is doing it too soon.” Poulter adds that, in doing the movie, he learned that “the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it is connection.”
Poulter stars in Union County with his Warfare co-star Noah Centineo, which the latter calls a “happy occurrence.” Added Poulter, “It made developing a relationship that would ordinarily require a lot more acting very easy.” Elsewhere, the two of them acted alongside a spate of non-professional and first-time actors in a real drug court. “Adam was very conscious not to infringe on the recovery path for any of those participants,” says Poulter. He wanted to capture the real experience of people in the program, “but he didn’t want to burden participants with the responsibility to create narrative beats or dramatize things or perform in the traditional sense.” The solution was to have the two fictional characters played by Poulter and Centineo act like the “eyes and ears” integrated into the real program.
Poulter speaks highly of programs like the one depicted in the movie. “These programs—at least what I witnessed—are characterized by more humanity and more care than we often extend to folks with substance use disorders,” he says. “I think care and a sense of humanity need to be implemented more when it comes to those sorts of programs.” You can find more information about the programs and resources here.