The Outrun
Over the years, there have been a handful of films which tackle the tricky subject of alcoholism. “The Lost Weekend,” “The Days of Wine and Roses,” and “Leaving Las Vegas” immediately come to mind. Throw in the underseen 2021 picture “The Good House” with Sigourney Weaver, and we have a quartet of classic performances highlighting this all-to-common disease.
Unique take on disease
Now, German director Nora Fingscheidt offers up “The Outrun,” featuring a captivating, potentially award-winning turn by 30-year-old Saoirse Ronan, which offers a unique take on this sickness. Unlike the protagonists in the previously-mentioned films, Ronan’s Rona – Yes, that’s her character’s name – enjoys drinking. Even when she joins an AA group, she doesn’t want to stop. She even admits to the group that she misses drinking. She enjoys the temporary high of an alcohol buzz. She seems bored and depressed without it. But, as with all alcoholics, she drinks and is unable to stop.
Unique structure
And yes, Ronan’s performance is brilliant. “The Outrun” immediately rivals “Brooklyn,” “Lady Bird,” and “Little Women” as the best of her still-young career. But the uniqueness of Fingscheidt’s take on alcoholism is the structure of the film itself. Her screenplay (adapted from British journalist Amy Liptrot’s 2016 memoir) never attaches itself to any one moment in time. We seamlessly drift from Rona’s childhood to accounts of her drunken escapades to AA meetings to visits with her divorced parents.
Typically, I don’t like the overuse of flashbacks to tell what would work best as linear stories. But the various scenes in “The Outrun” aren’t used as flashbacks. Rather, they are thoughts and images, assembled to provide a picture of a situation, and a person who has been through the proverbial ringer. Think of “The Outrun” this way: If a mutual friend were to tell us about Rona and her disease, that person wouldn’t convey the story in a linear fashion, a la “Forrest Gump.” The reality is that as the narrator continues, he would think of vignettes as they enter his mind, and as they pertain to his prior point. And that’s how “The Outrun” is presented. Scenes are connected more by thoughts than by a fixed timeline.
Similar to Malick
If this sounds like Mike Nichols’ “Catch-22,” it is similar in structure, although the scene cuts aren’t so obvious. Watching “The Outrun” is more like watching a Terrence Malick film; we drift in and out of various scenes throughout the course of the movie. At its conclusion, Fingscheidt has provided us with just enough of Rona’s childhood, just enough tales of drunken ribaldry, just enough of her struggle with recovery, just enough of her attempts to reconcile with distraught friends and family, and so forth. Just not in any particular order. This makes “The Outrun” completely original, and a real breath of fresh air.
Story outline
The basic outline of the screenplay is that after living in London for some time, Rona returns to her family home in the Orkney Islands north of Scotland, where her father operates a sheep farm, and her mother spends time with her church and various small groups associated with that church. Eventually, Rona takes a job with an environmental research group studying the dwindling number of a rare bird once common to the Orkneys. It is through this organization, not through AA, that Rona finds a connection outside of drunken forays.
Now, returning home to a beautiful yet cold, sparsely populated miles from London might seem like a terrible life decision. After all, what else would there be for Rona to do than drink? But leaning on her interest in animals – undoubtedly cultivated from her farming upbringing – would appear to be the catalyst to lead her out of the horror of her previous life, and re-direct her to the promise of a new one. And as we learn, most of Rona’s bouts with alcohol occurred during her London years.
Film used as art
In this sense (as in its general structure), “The Outrun” is refreshing. Fingscheidt seems to be wiping the slate clean, as it were – not only for Rona, but for us as viewers. Don’t expect the screenplay to provide easy answers. We know Rona is only one all-too-easily accessible drink away from relapse. But we also know she may have found a new life; a new way forward. “The Outrun” is a hopeful and engaging picture, featuring another astonishing performance by Saoirse Ronan. When Rona “directs” the ocean over classical music toward the conclusion of the film, we know we are experiencing greatness.
Over the years, the medium of film has been used to titillate, frustrate, manipulate, educate, and entertain. But certain films take on an art of their own, which separates them from the rest of the pack. “The Outrun” is such a film.
Andy Ray‘s reviews also appear on https://townepost.com/