THE OUTRUN (2024)
Starring Saoirse Ronan, Paapa Essiedu, Nabil Elouahabi, Izuka Hoyle, Lauren Lyle, Saskia Reeves, Stephen Dillane, Eilidh Fisher, Naomi Wirthner, Danyal Ismail, Posy Sterling, Patch Bell, Nabil Elouahabi, Jack Rooke, Seamus Dillane, Conrad Williamson, Tony Hamilton and Ammar Younis.
Screenplay by Nora Fingscheidt & Amy Liptrot.
Directed by Nora Fingscheidt.
Distributed by Sony Classic Pictures. 118 minutes. Rated R.
Substance abuse, alcoholism and addiction are very difficult to deal with, even from the relatively safe distance of a theater seat.
They can be dangerous roles to play for an actor, but they are also juicy, dramatic characters full of flaws and hitting rock bottom.
Once upon a time in film, these examinations of recovering addicts were staples of serious, Award-courting movies – things like The Lost Weekend, The Days of Wine and Roses, Leaving Las Vegas and Clean and Sober.
In recent years, this kind of film (and role) has become a bit scarcer, partially because of the discomfort of the audiences, partially because of the extreme toll the characters can take on the actors.
Therefore, all credit is due to Saoirse Ronan – who has always been a fairly fearless actress – for allowing herself to take the bumpy emotional ride of the small arthouse film The Outrun, which was adapted from an acclaimed memoir by Amy Liptrot.
Ronan plays Rona, a thirty-ish recovering alcoholic who had spent a decade partying in London and has now moved back to the area in which she grew up – the Orkney Islands off of Scotland – in an attempt to get her life back on track. (The somewhat inscrutable sounding title The Outrun actually refers to a type of outlying coastal farmland on Orkney that's not suitable for cultivation, which is where Rona ends up taking residence and reinventing herself.)
The Outrun flips back and forth in time in Rona’s life – from her troubled childhood with a bi-polar father and religious mother, to her wild party days in London, to her current desperate attempts to keep herself sober.
Needless to say, there are some very depressing parts of The Outrun. However, as Rona rediscovers her home in the stunningly beautiful, if slightly remote and rundown island, the nature and the landscape soothes the audience as well as the heroine, which is a nice cinematic trick.
By simplifying her life, her needs and her world, we can see Rona potentially getting it all together, and it is a rather cathartic feeling.
The Outrun is not the type of movie that will ever get a huge following – particularly not in this period of cinematic history – and that is kind of a shame. It is definitely a film worth seeing.
I just hope that it makes enough of a splash that Saoirse Ronan is remembered during Awards season, because this fearless tightrope performance is definitely worthy of at the very least some serious nominations.
Jay S. Jacobs
Copyright ©2024 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: October 4, 2024.
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