‘Union County’ Blends Fiction With Ohio Drug Court Reality
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- Union County, an expansion of Meeks’s 2020 short, premiered in Sundance’s U.S. Dramatic Competition, with Poulter as Cody, a young man in opioid recovery, and Centineo as his foster brother Jack.
- Adam Meeks filmed around Bellefontaine, Ohio, a town of fewer than 15,000 residents, bringing the production to his home state and the local recovery program led by counselor Annette Deao.
- Noah Centineo and Will Poulter observed court sessions and Narcotics Anonymous meetings, met counselor Annette Deao, and worked with a dialect coach months before returning to Ohio to live on location.
- Narcotics Anonymous meetings were among the community spaces Centineo and Poulter attended, alongside real court sessions, while preparing for Meeks’s Ohio-set feature.
- Annette Deao, an actual counselor who appears as herself, stays on the phone with participants until the next meeting, Centineo said; he said she can be called at 4 a.m. when someone is close to relapsing.
- Will Poulter said Union County counters bleak addiction imagery by showing recovery’s support, accountability and hope in a beautiful rural Ohio setting rather than only dark street corners.
- Oscilloscope Laboratories will release the film theatrically on Friday, August 14; Centineo and Poulter also serve as producers.
Why it matters: For Ohio recovery participants, the film makes the system itself—not just individual relapse—part of the story. Its August 14 theatrical release gives the court program wider public visibility through real court scenes, counseling and accounts of accountability, support and hope.
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