Following a debut at 2024’s early film festivals, The Outrun lands on home formats, Nora Fingsheidt’s feature adaptation of Amy Liptrot’s uncompromising memoir, one of the best films of the year. The Outrun digital review is below.
Away from the noise of the summer blockbusters; the countless sequels and movies revolving around superhuman beings, and space travellers etc. The Outrun is simply one of those films we should all be seeking out and watching. Saoirse Ronan has never been better as Rona, a young woman in the final year of her twenties who returns home to the Orkney Islands after a troubled life down south in London where she fell victim to many years of substance, specifically alcohol abuse, despite multiple attempts to get sober.
The film begins in Orkney, one of the furthermost north and indeed remote parts of the United Kingdom – it is almost parallel to Oslo in Norway and Helsinki in Finland – where human contact is minimal due to its small population and obviously being cut off from the mainland. Rona has moved back to the family farm, a sprawling estate over hundreds of acres where her parents still reside, though have gone their separate ways. She stays with her heavily religious mother, who has the family home, and also her bipolar father, who is still living nearby but in a remote caravan. We learn that Rona has indeed got sober, her spell on a 90-day rehab programme successful, and moved away from London, at least for a short period of time.
The film cleverly flashes back to events leading up to this point. There’s a relationship with Daynin (a brilliant Paapa Essiedu) which felt the strain of Rona’s addiction. There are many nights out, Rona hitting the bottle, the afflicted young woman under her illness which is mapped out by Fingsheidt and Liptrot’s wonderful screenplay by a number of scenes with Rona under the influence. Whether it be her the last to leave a closing bar at the start of the movie, kicked out by a bouncer, or the aftermath of an inebriated episode with Dyanin which ends with serious injury, all are very difficult to watch. Over time, Rona finds a connection with locals in her new surroundings, a new way to live, and the healing surroundings of a seemingly foreign land, constantly battling the urges and dangers of potential relapse.
Fingsheidt’s film has a very authentic feel to it, the acting very naturalistic, particularly in the Orkney scenes. The visuals are stunning – in fact, the cinematography by Yunus Roy Imer (System Crasher) is amazing (see image above), and the score by John Gürtler and Jan Miserre is equally engulfing.
This is up there as one of the best films about addiction, every element of the production simply outstanding. Ronan’s performance should command another Academy nomination (adding to her five already); she’s simply brilliant in every scene – and she is in every scene.
Powerful, overwhelming and utterly profound, The Outrun should be seen by all. Simply one of the best films of the year.
The Outrun is available now on digital to buy and rent and will be available to own on Blu-ray and DVD from 16th December.
The Outrun
Summary
A career-best Saoirse Ronan leads one of the best, and indeed most memorable films of the year. Uncompromising, and extremely powerful, The Outrun is one of those films that should be seen by all.
