Movie Review: 'The Outrun' is Saorise Ronan at her Best

The Outrun

Director Nora Fingscheidt

Written by Nora Fingscheidt, Amy Liptrot

Starring Saorise Ronan

Release Date October 24th, 2024

Published November 7th, 1980

The Outrun stars Saorise Ronan as Rona, an alcoholic who has returned home to a small Scottish island following a stint in an intensive rehab facility. Back home for the first time in years she’s confronted with her past, specifically her father, Andrew, played by Stephen Dillane, who’s Bi-Polar Disorder was a huge part of Rona’s childhood. And then there is Rona’s mother, Annie (Saskia Reeves), who turned to religion after leaving Rona’s father. Rona appears to place as much blame on Annie for her difficult childhood as she does her father and his illness.

Thematically, Rona’s strained relationship with her mother, and the loving relationship she has with her father, plays as an almost one to one comparison to Rona’s own issues in her relationship with Daynin (Paapa Essiedu), the boyfriend she had while living in London and relying on alcohol to keep her insecurities at bay. The way Rona’s alcoholism mirrors her father’s behavior due to his mental illness and how these behaviors affected their respective partners is an effective piece of dramatic mirroring.

While home in Orkney, an island off of Scotland, Rona busies herself on her father’s farm and longs for the comforts of others. A particularly effective and uncomfortable scene finds Rona awkwardly flirting with a man on the street. Her desperate need for connection is palpable to us and to him, if not for her, and it creates an energy in the scene that is fully alive. If you’ve ever overshared with a stranger and spent the rest of your life replaying the encounter in your mind in your darkest moments, you will recognize and understand this moment on a cellular level.

I love this scene and I love it not just for the brilliant performance of Saorise Ronan but for the writing which delivers important exposition while exploring the vulnerability of the main character. The scene tells us why Rona is in Orkney and a little more insight into her current mindset, important as we’ve only just met her following a drunken incident where she was thrown out of a closing bar while very, very intoxicated. What happened after that will unfold over several flashbacks as the movie progresses. Co-Writer-Director Nora Fingscheidt does a terrific job of wielding dialogue as a tool without hammering us over the head with ham-fisted exposition.

The Outrun employs flashbacks to to fill in some of the fuzzy memories of Rona's alcholism and her relationship with Daynin and Fingscheidt uses the many, many tools of visual filmmaking to root us in the various times of Rona’s story. One of my favorite uses of visual signifiers is how Rona’s blue hair tells us where we are in time. When we are in the past, the blue is covering most of her head. When we are in the present, her blonde hair has grown out and the blue only remains at the tips of her hair. The passage of time is clarified in a simple and elegant visual.

Nora Fingscheidt uses all of the filmmaking and screenwriting tools well to tell this story. As Rona begins her recovery, she takes a job working for a non-profit organization working to preserve rare animal species. Her job, at first is a tedious one, she must travel over an endless grid of farmland and listen for the sound of a rare bird, the CornCrake. Through long lonely nights with no sound but her own thoughts, Rona is forced to confront herself in a way that builds a strong metaphor for her overarching journey.

Saorise Ronan’s performance in The Outrun is exceptional. Her narration is revealing and intimate and the way she manages to hold the center of scenes where she’s all alone demonstrates her magnetism and star power as well as the power of this story and the exceptional screenplay. The Outrun is just under two hours but it earns every one of those minutes and makes the most of them via Ronan’s extraordinarily vulnerable and revealing performance. It’s one of my favorite performances of 2024.

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