After watching The Outrun, I imagined the title referred to outrunning addiction, somehow getting past its hold. The truth behind the title is less obvious but more poetic. According to multiple sources, an outrun is a stretch of coastland at the top of a farm, where the grass is always short from being pummeled by the wind and sea spray year-round.
“The urge to drink can come out of nowhere.”
It’s the pummeling that sticks with you. The idea of someone finding a way to move just outside the reach of alcoholism, yet being repeatedly pulled back in, each time losing more of the things that matter and the people most loved. The Outrun, directed by Nora Fingscheidt and adapted by her and Amy Liptrot from Liptrot’s poignant memoir, is a film that pulls us into the struggles of a woman grappling with addiction amidst the starkly stunning landscapes of the Orkney Islands.
Starring Saoirse Ronan as Rona, The Outrun drifts back and forward through time, much like the fragmented recollections of someone whose memory is distorted by pain and intoxication. It is a watercolor kind of film, sometimes soft as mist, in other moments spilling over, and when your hopes rise highest it’s torrential. We can only trust Rona as much as she trusts herself. That seems to be in Scotland, in that place called Orkney, but getting there is complicated—filled with relapses, abuse, love lost (portrayed by Paapa Essiedu), and reflections of the nature of myth and science.
If you’re able to surrender to the flow of the film, there is hopefulness that surpasses the regret. However, it is not easy—and that is good. Our compassion, and perhaps our ability to cope with any side of a similar situation, relies on that difficulty.
What moved me most, beyond Ronan and Essiedu’s performances, is how Rona narrates her story. Her voiceover begins with the folklore of her childhood—in the myths and tales that strengthen her belief in something beyond what she is experiencing. Later, her descriptions shift to the science of her biology degree, when she holds onto facts because everything else is slipping away. As she heals, Rona finds clarity, blending everything she’s experienced—myth, nature, and science—into poetry. That’s how I see The Outrun: as the poetry of a hard life lived in search of grace.
