The Reel Review
A biologist struggling with alcoholism signs onto a work assignment on one of the most remote and northernmost of Scotland’s Orkney Islands, as a way for her to outrun her addictive impulses, reconnect with her love of nature and find new meaning in her life. Saoirse Ronan starts in the drama based on an adaptation of Amy Liptrot’s 2016 memoir.
The Outrun is purposely told in a non-linear fashion, intentionally capturing the murkiness of memories by those in the throes of addiction. Over the course of the film details emerge to complete the picture of key moments in Rona’s life – a dysfunctional childhood, violent trauma stemming from her alcoholism, and a father with mental illness. Rona’s varying hair dye and length is the only clue to which moment in time we are seeing. Ronan delivers an exceptional performance, avoiding the frequent cliches and tropes in movies about addiction, with the beauty and remote harshness of the Orkney Islands serving as a symbolic backdrop to the story of recovery.
The biggest downside of The Outrun, which also is the grazing land on her father’s farm where several key moments in Rona’s life take place, is a languid story that director Nora Fingscheidt wrote with Liptrot and Daisy Lewis that often feels more like a beautifully filmed fever dream about the perils of addiction. But towards its finale, this heavily voiced-over character study reveals the similarities in Rona’s old and new life through metaphors in nature, culminating in a simple but sweet moment, as it captures the joy of a life filled with new possibilities.
REEL FACTS
• The Outrun is the first film shot on the island of Papa Westray (population 90), one of the northernmost of Scotland’s Orkney Islands.
• Saoirse Ronan originally was going to play one of the Weird Barbies in Greta Gerwig’s 2023 comedy Barbie but was unable to appear due to scheduling conflicts while shooting The Outrun.
• The lamb birthing scene in the film is real. Saoirse Ronan learned how to birth a lamb from a farmer on the Orkney Islands. The scene required seven takes delivering seven lambs to get the right shot.
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