At a festival where the focus is usually on the many micro and macro systemic wrongs in America, there’s something unusually uplifting to find a Serious Issues movie that hinges on something that actually works. Director Adam Meeks came across a rare piece of good news in the hellscape that is the opioid epidemic: the Ohio drug courts that help to rehabilitate addicts through a system of non-judgmental support and a strict, yet not unforgiving, schedule.
His feature debut Union County – an extension of a 2020 short – shows the positive outcome of treating addiction as a problem to be solved, rather than a lifestyle choice to be demonised.
