A review of the new film “The Outrun”
Think you have problems? Well, 30 year old Scottish Rona is coping with a traumatic childhood, a bipolar father, an evangelical mother, the break-up of a relationship, a serious addiction to alcohol and acute depression, plus the wildness, windiness and loneliness of an island in Orkney.
This could, so easily, have been a misery movie, but it is saved by fine acting, wonderful scenery and the ultimate redemption in the narrative. It is, however, a rocky road with constant jumps in time and space in a jagged and erratic storyline. Special mention should be made of the idiosyncratic sound which contributes so much to the atmosphere of each scene.
The film is adapted and lightly fictionalised by German director Nora Fingscheldt and Amy Lipton from the later’s 2016 recovery memoir of the same name. In the central role – she is rarely off the screen – Saoirse Ronan is simply wonderful and, following her four Academy Award nominations, this could well be the performance that bags her that Oscar at last. She puts everything into this harrowing tale and she and her husband Jack Lowden were co-producers.
Incidentally, the titular outrun is an outlying coastal piece of farmland, not suitable for cultivation. In a sense, the film itself is an outrun, something that many would want to avoid but some will find bracing and even invigorating.