Will Poulter, writer-director Adam Meeks and recovery court program director Annette Deao spent recent days crisscrossing Ohio in a Chevrolet Traverse, screening their addiction recovery drama Union County at independent theaters before its nationwide release Friday. The film, shot on location in Bellefontaine and across rural Logan County, blends professional actors with real participants from an adult recovery court program that Deao has run for more than 20 years.
Union County follows fictionalized foster brothers Cody and Jack, played by Poulter and Noah Centineo, as they navigate recovery from addiction. As reported by WTOP, the story is based on real accounts Meeks encountered through Deao, whom he met through an adult recovery court program. Deao and Logan County Common Pleas Court Judge Kevin P. Braig both appear in the film playing versions of themselves, alongside recovery-program participants who took part in filming voluntarily.
Meeks, an Ohio-born, Brooklyn-based writer-director, began developing the film's story in the summer of 2017, and the tour marked a homecoming of sorts. The team stopped at Meeks's uncle's garage and at Deao's 185-year-old renovated barn, and Meeks has said he returned to the place where he was born to make the film. He observed that addiction had affected nearly everyone in the community in some way, according to the same account from the outlet.
From Sundance Premiere to a Statewide Screening Tour
Union County had its world premiere at Sundance in the U.S. Dramatic Competition in January, selected from more than 16,000 submissions for the festival's marquee competition block, and went on to earn a 94 percent positive rating from critics based on 35 reviews, according to Rotten Tomatoes. Independent distributor Oscilloscope Laboratories acquired U.S. distribution rights that April, setting the nationwide theatrical release for Friday, per a report from TheWrap.
Meeks originally told this story as a short film in 2020 that debuted at the Berlin International Film Festival before he expanded it into his feature directorial debut, developing the script through fellowships at the Jacob Burns Film Center and Film Independent, according to SAGindie. Principal photography ran from April 21 to May 16, 2025, on location in Bellefontaine and across Logan County, as documented by Peak of Ohio.
Real Recovery Court Participants Shared the Screen
Scenes filmed inside drug court sessions and sober support meetings featured unscripted dialogue from actual Logan County recovery court participants interacting in real time with Poulter and Centineo, according to the Sundance Institute's account of the production. Poulter, who also served as a producer on the film, said the film offers a counternarrative to how addiction is typically portrayed on television and in movies, per the report from WTOP. He described Deao as the heart and soul of both the community and the film, and said the movie presents recovery as achievable while also celebrating the beauty of the community and its natural setting.
Deao, who plays a version of herself, said the film accurately represented the recovery community and that the road trip had been healing for her personally. She has received strong applause at several screenings along the tour, the outlet reported. Centineo, who plays Cody's foster brother Jack, served as an executive producer on the film alongside Poulter's producing role, according to The Knockturnal.
A Judge's Guitar Picks and a Statewide System
The Adult Recovery Court of the Logan County Court of Common Pleas earned a three-year final certification from the Supreme Court of Ohio Commission on Specialized Dockets in December, joining 255 certified specialized dockets operating statewide, according to a release from the Logan County Court of Common Pleas. Judge Braig instituted a Walk the Line graduation tradition in 2020, in which recovery court graduates receive commemorative Johnny Cash guitar picks symbolizing perseverance in recovery, a nod to Cash's own battle with addiction, per Peak of Ohio's earlier reporting.
Ohio operates specialized dockets across 64 counties, including 102 certified drug courts and 30 family drug courts, according to the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services' 2025 annual report. That statewide infrastructure underpins the recovery court program depicted in the film and the real docket that Deao has overseen for two decades.
Stops in Akron, Columbus and a Somali Food Stall
The tour included a screening at the Nightlight in Akron and another at the Gateway Film Center in Columbus, with the team also stopping earlier this year at Bellefontaine's historic Holland Theatre for a community preview featuring a panel with the cast, director and local recovery court staff, according to Peak of Ohio. Poulter, a British actor previously seen as a pharmaceutical sales representative in the miniseries Dopesick, joined Meeks and Deao for dinner at Hoyo's Kitchen, a Somali food stall inside Columbus' North Market, before another question-and-answer session.
Meeks has joked that Poulter was a bad influence on the trip, per WTOP's account of the tour. The team planned to continue their Ohio road trip after a stop in a projector booth, carrying the film's message from festival stages toward the local theaters and communities that helped make it.
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