‘The Outrun’: Saoirse Ronan Hits Rock Bottom, Then Rises Up

Every movie alcoholic lets you ride shotgun with them to their rock bottom, and the low point that Saoirse Ronan‘s character — her name is Rona — hits headfirst in The Outrun is a high-impact one. When we first meet her, she’s being thrown out of a pub in London, having stayed long past closing time and even longer past her welcome. She’s coquettishly crawling under tables and on top of the bar, downing whatever half-drunk pints are left from previous patrons. When the bouncer tries to escort her to the door, Rona gets violent. Once she’s thrown out and dumped half her purse, she begins staggering toward her ex-boyfriend’s new place; he’s just left the apartment they shared after having hit his breaking point with her, which is the big reason behind this particularly bad bender. A man in a car offers to give her a lift. Unwisely, she accepts. The next time we see her, Rona is being examined in the E.R., a huge, bloody wound above her right eye.

We’ll eventually get the details of what happened between Points A and B, and suffice to say, it’s not pretty. The movie lets us observe a few of Rona’s other blackout excursions, all of which are accompanied by violence and self-harm and the burning of bridges. But the saddest bit happens right after the E.R. examination. She’s expressed a desire to be checked into a rehab program, one that forces patients to be just short of institutionalized. Her ex, Daynin (I May Destroy You‘s Paapa Essiedou), has come by the hospital to make sure Rona is ok. They sit outside, smoking and catching up. It’s clear that she’s still very much in love with Daynin. For a split second, reconciliation feels possible. Then they hear the sound of a few rowdy gents leaving a tavern. And she asks: Fancy a quick drink? The look on his face tells you everything you need to know. It’s the tale of the frog and the scorpion. Once again, Rona can’t help but sting.

Based on Scottish journalist Amy Liptrot’s 2016 memoir of the same name, The Outrun tries to avoid loitering too long at the stations of the cross that characterize most films about substance abuse, descent and recovery. You see enough to know that Rona has a problem, and needs to get serious help ASAP. Much of the movie is devoted to her return to the Orkney Islands, where her divorced parents still live. Mom (Saskia Reeves) is a holy roller. Dad (Stephen Dillane) is a farmer, still working the 150 acres of land that Rona grew up on, and still dealing with the bipolar disorder that made her childhood so fraught. It’s here that she’ll attempt to remain sober and put the pieces of her life back together. Eventually, when the ghosts of her past nudge her toward a relapse, Rona will relocate to an even more remote part of the Northern Isles known as Papay, living in a cottage and trying to remain dry. “It never gets easy,” she’s told by a local shopkeeper, who’s got a dozen years of sobriety under his belt. “It just gets less hard.”
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The danger in these types of movies is that they too often go from being tales of tragedy and triumph to something like obstacle courses for actors — watch how they navigate the dark nights of the soul, then tackle the 12-step recovery section before taking several steps backwards, etc. There’s no reason to think The Outrun will be any different, especially during those early sequences; the fact that writer-director Nora Fingschiedt and Liptrot, who helped adapt her book for the screen, are telling this story in a piecemeal, out-of-order way that evokes morning-after memories bubbling to the surface simply makes the course a little more twisty than usual. They have nonetheless still given their lead plenty of things to jump over, slide under and run through.

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So it’s a shock when you start to sense that Ronan is not just deftly maneuvering over each hurdle and stumbling block but plotting her own way through this hell-to-healing journey, all while keeping the humanity of Liptrot’s struggle intact. She’s always been an extraordinarily talented actor, whether she’s gracing literary adaptations (The Lovely Bones, Atonement, Little Women, The Tragedy of Macbeth), coming-of-age parables (Lady Bird, Brooklyn), period pieces (Ammonite, the upcoming Blitz) or the occasional high-falutin’ genre flick (Hanna, Byzantium). Here, Ronan manages to turn a familiar story into something like an epic of self-forgiveness. She knows when to hold back, letting a quiet moment on a beach or a furtive stare at a store shelf stocked with bottles say everything that need be said. And she knows when to unleash a fury that, in its out-of-the-blue ramp-up, is startling in its intensity. There’s an entire history of fear, loathing and pain in the way she says, “I can’t be happy sober.” She can tread lightly on a tightrope. Emotions and empathy radiate off of her even when she appears to be doing nothing at all.
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Ronan can’t save The Outrun from its limitations as a drama, or from its worst stack-the-deck instincts. But she does lift this film up and infuse the storytelling with a genuine sense of what it means to try living one day at a time for the rest of one’s life. That she accomplishes all of this without the sense of please-take-me-seriously grandstanding or the sort of air of performative despair usually submitted for your consideration is, frankly, astounding. Thanks to her, you see the lost soul raging against the world from those opening moments still hovering over the person walking a difficult road ahead at the end. Yet you also witness Rona plow ahead toward acceptance of that angry young woman because of Ronan. This person may not be able to outrun her inner alcoholic. But you leave sensing that she may finally able to live with her.