Reviews

Saoirse Ronan needs to prepare herself for another Oscars campaign thanks to her performance in The Outrun.

The drama, based on Amy Liptrot’s 2016 memoir of the same name, tells the story of Rona (Ronan), a young woman who leaves behind her life in London and returns home to her family on the Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland to try and get sober.

While it has narrative issues holding it back from being truly great, The Outrun is still a remarkable showcase of Ronan’s talents. The 30-year-old already has four Oscar nominations under her belt and this drama is highly likely to bring her a fifth.

She delivers an understated but powerful portrayal of a recovering alcoholic trying to get clean and put her life back together. Because the film jumps around in time, we get to see many different versions of Rona, from the violent drunken monster to the quiet, isolated former addict, and Ronan gets to show off her range.

Unfortunately, the film has quite a shapeless narrative which frequently moves back and forth in time, offering us snapshots of Rona’s life in a haphazard and non-linear fashion. Although Rona’s hair colour hints at the timeline, it can be difficult to figure out where a specific scene fits in the grand scheme of the story. It gets easier as the film progresses and jumps around less in the final act, but it can still be quite disorientating.

It feels like director Nora Fingscheidt, who co-wrote the film with Liptrot, wanted to slowly paint the picture of Rona rather than follow the conventional recovery story route. This approach doesn’t quite work though because the scenes are sometimes repetitive (there are too many drunken sequences), there isn’t much sense of pace and it feels significantly longer than two hours.

Despite the unsatisfying structure and pace, The Outrun is still worth a watch for Ronan’s poignant and heartbreaking performance.

In cinemas from Friday 27th September.

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