I’ve been a fan of Saoirse Ronan ever since I saw her in Atonement eighteen years ago. She played a young girl who inadvertently says she saw something she didn’t exactly see.  Ever since she’s been on my radar as an actress to watch for. She’s been close to winning an Academy Award a few times but hasn’t gotten that golden man named Oscar in her possession.  Her latest film The Outrun could garner her that elusive accolade during the next awards cycle. 

Rona (Saoirse Ronan) is a young woman in London who likes to drink and party hard. She takes after her old man in that regard. After losing her job and her boyfriend from her alcoholic ways she returns to her home in the Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland. She starts to use her previous education as an animal scientist to study the local wildlife, mainly birds. Also, she wants to try and dry out by going to AA meetings and stop drinking.

Ronan has played various types of characters in her career. Mainly young women dealing with different obstacles in their lives. From school, to work, romantic connections, and family.  In this movie, she deals with a little bit of all of that. The main thing she has to deal with, which resonates with me, is alcoholism and the repercussions of being a sad alcoholic at such a young age. As a recovering alcoholic myself I know it is hard to be sober when everyone you know is a drinker. I’ve been sober for eleven years and it hasn’t been an easy path for me to follow. 

Nora Fingscheidt has made a career of making films about women dealing with difficult circumstances. The Unforgivable was her last film starring Sandra Bullock as a woman trying to enter back into society after being in prison for a heinous crime. The Outrun is a little different, but similar in a sense. She knows how to write about damaged women. She puts a lot of Hart into this script. It’s not easy to write about sadness and anger. She uses a lot of interesting styles to help to tell this story.

The various styles the director uses are flashback sequences that reveal who the main character is before the viewers see her on the island studying the wildlife. Numerous sequences show her in various conditions which are very troublesome. She has been in no condition to drive or have another drink but she refuses to listen to her friends in these bad ways. A shallow depth of field is used to represent cloudy vision and shaky behavior.  I was completely invested in how these scenes were used in the movie to express these very difficult situations and various circumstances. 

With this film taking place in and around Scotland the landscapes are used as a way to show trauma and anxiety. The waves are seen constantly crashing against cliffs and rocks below. This is an analogy of how hard not drinking is for the lead character played by Ronan. She is constantly reminded of her condition by her father who is going through the same thing as her. The beautiful vistas and green landscapes are impeccably shot by the cinematographer Yunas Roy Iner. Scotland always looks good on screen, but it was like a character in this movie from the start.

There is a small supporting cast with Stephen Dillane as the main character’s father Andrew, who she gets her drinking ways from, and Saskia Reeves as Annie the main character’s mother. She has reverted to believing strongly in God to try and force herself to not have to deal with her ex-husband or her daughter who she still loves deeply. Paapa Esseidi plays Dayin, the main character’s ex-boyfriend. He put up with a lot regarding the hard-partying ways of Ronan’s character. He was a better man than I would be in those circumstances. The cast is pretty good, but Ronan is clearly the standout.

As a recovering alcoholic myself I found The Outrun a hard film to watch, but in a good way. The director made this story and character very uncomfortable to watch. Having lived this type of crazy lifestyle myself I know how it would be for anybody to watch my own life unfold like this. Ronan captures this lifestyle perfectly on screen. She is an awards-worthy actress who should be nominated once again for this performance.  I’ve been around a lot of bars and clubs in my day and she acted like many women I knew in my day. The look and cinematography of the film is beautiful. The script is well written but Ronan is the real reason to see this movie. Her performance is one of the best I’ve seen all year from any actress. 

4 ½

Dan Skip Allen