Will Poulter’s course has been an unconventional one fo tollow. Breaking through in the UK when still a teen with sketch show School of Comedy and Garth Jennings’ still delightful Son of Rambow, he’s spent the last decade circling major stardom. He’s a consistent, top-notch performer, a safe pair of hands, and the kind of figure described as being an unlikely heartthrob despite being a classically handsome movie star. Union County marks a shift to absolute center stage for Poulter, the kind that the uncharitable might claim has “Academy, Please!” written all over it. Too often with these kinds of projects comes the kiss of tedium, hamstringing films in service of actorly showcase. And the film’s plot does suggest we could be in for that kind of grandstanding: Poulter is Cody, recently released from prison and inaugurated into a court-mandated program in which regular meetings with a judge are designed to keep him clean. The film follows as he, alongside his brother Jack (Noah Centineo), pass through the program while trying to overcome addiction and move back into ordinary life in a rural Ohio with little in the way of amusement or opportunity.
But what quickly sets Union County apart from many of its contemporaries is how welcomingly unhistrionic it is. There are none of the blazing arguments or wailing breakdowns that have come to define representations of addiction in cinema of late. Much of this comes through and is indeed rooted in Union County‘s central character, who Meeks boldly characterizes as being taciturn to the extreme, barely uttering a word for long stretches of the film. Instead, we’re asked to patiently follow him day to day, observing routine, trying to work and stay out of trouble, the manner in which society’s cards are stacked against him and others in recovery gently teased out in an unforced but pointed manner. It’s a brilliant performance of quiet looks and miniscule gestures from Poulter, communicating more in the way he dolefully puts his hood up than others have in five minutes of screaming monologue. Centineo is likewise electric, continuing his shift from heartthrob to the kind of rich performer than you can hang an entire film on. His Jack is in some ways Cody’s opposite; lively, energetic, but he too carries behind his eyes that which colors much of the film’s world: the exsanguinating weight of all-consuming shame.
But if this all sounds like the markers of a tortuous viewing experience, Union County isn’t that. As much as there is pain coursing through the film, Meeks is equally concerned with hope, which particularly comes through via the director’s use of the real participants taking part in a program similar to the one depicted in the film. Where lesser filmmakers could have allowed this to develop like a cheap shortcut to authenticity, in execution here the characters’ looks of pride, particularly in the courthouse and graduation sequences, gives the film it’s brightest light amidst the dark. Its’ this that draws Cody out of himself and brings the best out in the film, where we see his push from insular, self-flagellating silence into the absolution of community.
In its quiet, unhurried pace and blurry lines between fact and fiction, Union County in some ways comes to resemble the Ross brothers’ Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets, and like that film Meeks’ project becomes slightly hoisted by its own hyper-authentic petard. Whenever it does edge toward melodrama, proceedings take on the weight of feeling a touch forced, as if Meeks has lost momentary faith in his film’s own patient and de-sensationalized storytelling. If this seems like a harsh reading of the kind of crises that too often mark the lives of addicts, but the score is too overbearing in these moments not to feel frustration at the turn, a sudden bark telling you exactly how to feel in a film that has done well to give you the space to choose. Still, these are only minor wobbles in an minor key but deeply felt first feature, one that suggests both its director and star could have even greater work in them going forward.
DIRECTOR: Adam Meeks; CAST: Will Poulter, Noah Centineo, Elise Kibler, Emily Meade, Annette Deao; DISTRIBUTOR: Oscilloscope Laboratories; IN THEATERS: August 14; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 37 min.
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