{"id":432755,"date":"2026-08-14T12:40:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T12:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/432755\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T12:40:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T12:40:16","slug":"union-county-review-will-poulter-shakes-off-his-demons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/432755\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Union County’ review: Will Poulter shakes off his demons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Wrestling with the realities of drug addiction is an endeavor rife with pitfalls for any filmmaker hoping to avoid easy judgment. To judge from the earliest, straight-on view in \u201cUnion County\u201d of Will Poulter<\/a>\u2019s Cody \u2014 a weary-looking, tight-lipped young Ohio man absorbing the rules of a treatment program as explained by a courtroom judge \u2014 the sense is that we\u2019re in for a ride-along hinged to honesty and the unfettered character work of a fine actor.<\/p>\n

That empathy is welcome from first-time writer-director Adam Meeks, and he supports his approach with a gentle aura of verisimilitude, a mostly locked-down camera and, in the snippets of other testimonials, a suggestion that we\u2019re in genuine spaces, not movie locations. Eventually, as the film tracks Cody\u2019s progress through this rural stretch of central Ohio, it becomes clear we\u2019re in a fictionalized story surrounded by real recovery participants and counselors, a backdrop of sincerity that allows a well-intentioned performance to breathe on its own.<\/p>\n

That unaffected authenticity helps gird us for the quietly complicated tale \u201cUnion County\u201d has to tell. Cody, who is living in his car when we meet him, isn\u2019t alone as he starts this journey. Also in that courtroom that first day is his brother Jack (Noah Centineo), a more visibly restless and outgoing soul compared to Cody\u2019s protective reticence. Jack, who is further along in the program and seems to bring Cody out of his shell, also helps him land a job at a lumber mill where he works. Tagging along to a campfire hang, Cody allows himself to talk to Anna (Elise Kibler) and we notice a potential spark.<\/p>\n

But with that connection to Jack, initially forged as foster siblings but later as opioid buddies, comes risk. There\u2019s a sister, too, played by Emily Meade, and her stone-faced appearance during a backslide in Cody\u2019s recovery is a sign that with his past comes a lot he hasn\u2019t faced yet. But as we learn more about Cody, Jack and the hard road ahead, \u201cUnion County\u201d doesn\u2019t pitch its treatment as a cure-all, nor engineer candidness into dramatic gold. Rather, Meeks merely asks us to clock the humanity in our every minute of observing Cody, to recognize what struggling looks like whether we \u201cknow\u201d someone going through it or not.<\/p>\n

Necessary to that approach, which brings to mind the watchful grace of last year\u2019s stellar memory drama \u201cFamiliar Touch,\u201d<\/a> is the wonderful Poulter\u2019s lived-in presence as someone trying to not even have a presence. Meeks knows when and where to give his lead character distance, respecting that opacity. In group sessions, where Cody typically doesn\u2019t say much, the others speak for what Cody might be going through, Greek chorus-style. The effect is of watching someone float around the outside of a safe space. There\u2019s tension in wondering if he\u2019ll notice when it\u2019s time to slip inside.<\/p>\n

Social realist dramas aren\u2019t new and they include award-winning landmarks by Ken Loach and Chlo\u00e9 Zhao. But they\u2019re having a moment and \u201cUnion County\u201d underscores why some work as well as they do. The right mix of true and imagined can give the simplest of humane narratives \u2014 in this case, the possibility of renewal in an epidemic of hurt \u2014 a fresher chance to touch us.<\/p>\n

‘Union County’<\/p>\n

Not rated<\/p>\n

Running time: 1 hour, 37 minutes<\/p>\n

Playing: Opens Friday, Aug. 14 at Landmark\u2019s Nuart Theatre<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wrestling with the realities of drug addiction is an endeavor rife with pitfalls for any filmmaker hoping to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[21236,171915,171916,171909,171907,171911,33722,48,52,51,171914,47,50,49,171913,171912,171910,15060,171917,32989,171908],"class_list":["post-432755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-approach","tag-backdrop","tag-backslide","tag-brother-jack","tag-cody","tag-courtroom-judge","tag-drug-addiction","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lived-in-presence","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-meeks","tag-other-testimonial","tag-poulter","tag-review","tag-stellar-memory-drama","tag-treatment-program","tag-union-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}