Movie review by Greg Carlson
German filmmaker Nora Fingscheidt’s adaptation of Amy Liptrot’s 2016 memoir “The Outrun” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January to mostly favorable reviews. Star Saoirse Ronan’s performance attracted the most acclaim, but praise was also bestowed on Yunus Roy Imer’s impressive cinematography, which paints the fierce beauty of Scotland’s Orkney Islands as a character equal to Ronan’s Rona, a woman in her late 20s struggling with alcoholism. The magnetic and transfixing pull of the stark and austere physical environment cannot sustain interest on its own, however, and “The Outrun” overstays its welcome by a solid twenty to thirty minutes.
Fingscheidt’s fractured chronology, designed in part to illustrate the grip of addiction and its cyclical movements on Rona’s difficult recovery process, challenges viewers to pay attention to the timeline as the story unfolds. In a rhyme with Kate Winslet’s Clementine Kruczynski in Michel Gondry’s superior “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” we pick up clues to Rona’s progress (or lack thereof) based on the intense colors she dyes her hair. The achronological presentation of events also draws the viewer into the protagonist’s mind as she assembles the various anecdotes that will be used to construct the written account of her journey.
Rona’s memory stretches from a childhood observing the behaviors of her parents, portrayed in Rona’s adulthood by a terrific Stephen Dillane as bipolar father Andrew and an equally sharp Saskia Reeves as religiously devout mother Annie. Rona’s recollections also chart the dissolution of her romantic relationship with Daynin (Paapa Essiedu). Rona’s promising work as a graduate student studying biology in London is referenced principally through her inability to keep pace with her cohort once drinking starts to squeeze her, but Fingscheidt also stages several scenes in which Ronan loses control in clubs and pubs, to the concern of friends and dismay of Daynin.
A key turning point comes following a violent sexual assault that leaves Rona bloodied and bruised. Soon after, she seeks rehab. “The Outrun” joins dozens of movies that explore alcoholism through the eyes of a main character who stands to lose everything – and often does. Save for Ronan’s predictably excellent central performance, however, the movie does not fully measure up to the group’s best in class, including “The Lost Weekend,” “Barfly,” “When a Man Loves a Woman,” “Once Were Warriors,” “Leaving Las Vegas,” “Crazy Heart,” and more than one version of “A Star Is Born.”
Aside from examining one person’s recovery experience, “The Outrun” finds its voice as a contemplation of the pros and cons of solitude, a thematic element in the movie second in importance only to the pain of addiction. Once Rona accepts a post with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds on the sparsely populated and remote island of Papa Westray, Fingscheidt establishes the most effective and emotionally satisfying sequences in the film. Away from her family as well as the intense pace of London, Rona spends the majority of time on Papa Westray by herself, allowing us to take some comfort in her self-sufficiency as she works her way forward one day at a time.