The Outrun

Addiction dramas have been around forever, but The Outrun is one of the best I’ve ever seen when it comes to portraying the day-to-day struggle to maintain sobriety. Ask anyone who’s been through the process and they’ll tell you the same thing – that it often requires a complete recalibration of life that involves avoiding the people, places, and things you associate with using. Changing our lives so drastically would be daunting for those of us fortunate enough not to live with the disease. Imagine doing it when you’re neck deep in the throes of addiction.

Rona (Saoirse Ronan) is an addict whose alcohol abuse has caused a breakup with her boyfriend Daynin (Men’s Paapa Essiedu) and strained relations with her religious mother Annie (Saskia Reeves). Father Andrew (Stephen Dillane) is more understanding, although that’s in part because he’s dealing with severe mental illness that makes his life as chaotic as hers. After several failed trips to rehab, Rona – who defiantly asserts that she “cannot be happy sober” – rents a remote unit on the Orkney Islands off Scotland. There, she gets a job tracking corncrakes, an endangered bird native to the islands, and tries to pull herself together.

Director Nora Fingscheidt (The Unforgivable) shrewdly bounces back and forth between Rona’s current status and various points in her life leading up to it. (You have to pay attention to the character’s hair color to know where you’re at in time.) This has the effect of conveying her state of mind. Anything can trigger a flashback to her troubled past, where the never-ending cycle of guilt and shame drove her drinking. As a result, we learn what caused the riff with Daynin, as well as the traumas she’s been using alcohol to avoid dealing with. The Outrun paints a complete picture of how an addict is perpetually locked into battle with their own history, faced with the choice to either repeat it or change it.

Saoirse Ronan deserves an Oscar nomination for her work in the film. She provides Rona with tons of different layers, each one delivered with full emotional force. A key to the performance is that the actress doesn’t shy away from bringing out Rona’s unlikeable side. When wasted, she’s prone to saying mean things, behaving in a selfish, uncaring manner, and acting like a total jerk. Ronan makes that palpable while still making clear the great vulnerability underneath. Because we see her at her painful worst, we root for Rona to start managing her demons.

Storytelling devices used by the movie add to the effect. In voiceover, Rona describes Scottish lore, explains the history of corncrakes, and tosses out bits of scientific knowledge. This helps us grasp her mindset; she’s trying to bring order to her thought process. A recurring image involves her father “conducting” the noise made by weather. This provides the film with its crescendo, a powerful moment of clarity for the central character.

The Outrun manages to capture recovery without becoming depressing. It realistically depicts the labor that goes into getting clean, but also emphasizes that sobriety can be achieved if an addict commits to what needs to be done. With Ronan’s outstanding work at the center, this is a first-rate drama with an empathetic perspective on its subject matter.


out of four

The Outrun is rated R for language and brief sexuality. The running time is 1 hour and 58 minutes.


© 2024 Mike McGranaghan