Saoirse Ronan puts herself through the physical and emotional wringer in The Outrun as a young Scottish woman repeatedly redefining her rock bottom before finally summoning the resolve to control her alcohol addiction. Following System Crasher, about a traumatized girl with violent anger issues, and The Unforgivable, which cast Sandra Bullock as an ex-con struggling to regain her place in the world, German director Nora Fingscheidt’s third narrative feature continues her visceral explorations of the scarred female psyche. The drama is often punishing, but it’s punctuated throughout by beacons signaling the transcendent power of nature.
The film is adapted from the well-received memoir by Amy Liptrot, a native of Scotland’s wild and wind-battered Orkney Islands who wrote with candor about her alcoholism, grounding her account in contemplations of the natural world around her, from its science to its mythology.
Those side notes — covering everything from folkloric tales of seals coming ashore as humans to beachcomber found-object art, maritime history, bird migration paths and a legend about the monster that gave birth to the Northern Isles — give the story a discursive aspect. Various interludes embrace documentary, philosophy and poetry, employing means that range from archival footage and photographs to animation.
Having so many narrative detours is a bold stroke, even if it results in some imperfect metaphors, the extensive voiceover emphasizes the material’s literary origins and the extracurricular ruminations don’t always optimize the flow. On the other hand, those deviations feed into a highly atmospheric sense of place, as well as laying the foundations for the communion with nature that will ultimately provide Ronan’s character, Rona, with a way forward.
Fingscheidt calls these seemingly random, sometimes scholarly thoughts, plucked from brainy biologist Rona’s restless mind, the story’s “nerd layer,” and they certainly enhance the texture of what might otherwise have been a downbeat slog to get to the optimistic outcome. The underwater images of seals are especially beautiful.
To be completely honest, I often wonder who addiction dramas are for, besides actors looking for a gritty challenge, to shrug off vanity and get messy. It’s been a long time since films about the downward spiral of alcoholism, like Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend or Blake Edwards’ Days of Wine and Roses, provided much in the way of raw shock. That said, a distinctive setting and imaginative narrative embellishment can make the desolation of unhealthy dependency compelling. That and magnetic performers hurling themselves into the addict roles. The Outrun has those pluses in its favor.
Rona has returned to Orkney after 10 years in London, looking to maintain the fragile equilibrium she established after a long voluntary stint in rehab. Her parents are separated, so she lives with her religious convert mother, Annie (Saskia Reeves), but helps out on the sheep farm where her bipolar father, Andrew (Stephen Dillane), lives in a caravan, having been forced by financial need to sell the family farmhouse.
As Rona tends to the farming demands of lambing season, reminders of her raucous drunken days in London rupture her thoughts like shards of glass, with the thumping techno music that accompanies many of those memories pounding away in her headphones. She’s seen violently resisting before being kicked out of a pub at closing time or growing hostile after getting out of control in a dance club and being refused service at the bar.
We witness the tender beginnings of her relationship with Daynin (Paapa Essiedu), but also the limits of his appetite for hardcore partying compared to Rona’s. Soon, she’s stashing alcohol around the apartment they share, and one explosive outburst too many causes him to move out.
Recollections of her time in rehab and the shame and self-doubt she shares with fellow alcoholics also surface in a timeline shuffled between London, the present-day Orkey Islands and her childhood there. “I cannot be happy sober,” she says to another AA attendee in a despondent moment.
These thoughts collide also with memories of her father’s manic highs when she was a girl, smashing windows and welcoming the gale-force winds like a conductor in front of an orchestra, eventually forcing Annie to leave him. The older Andrew initially seems more stable. But while Rona is still fighting internally not to fall off the wagon, he slides into a catatonic funk and then, like the waves crashing on the rocky shoreline, gets fired up with feverish talk about converting his property into a wind farm. Dillane captures the wild swings of bipolar disorder with heartbreaking effectiveness.
To be completely honest, I often wonder who addiction dramas are for...
what an absolutely stupid and short-sighted thing for a movie reviewer to say. far more of the moviegoing public can personally relate to the struggles of addiction than they can to the perils of superherodom
what an absolutely stupid and short-sighted thing for a movie reviewer to say. far more of the moviegoing public can personally relate to the struggles of addiction than they can to the perils of superherodom
At least he's just being honest about his ignorance
demonstrating your ignorance is not the same thing as being honest about it. he goes on to say these are strictly for actors who want to "get messy" and completely ignores the vast audience for which these movies are actually intended
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The Outrun (2024)
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