THE OUTRUN: A Review
by Karen Pecota

Nora Fingscheidt | United Kingdom | Germany | 2024

Adapted from the best-selling memoir by Amy Liptrot, filmmaker Nora Fingscheidt showcases a brutally honest account of addiction and one woman’s journey to sobriety in THE OUTRUN.

Nora shares, “It’s a true story about how easily one can find their life broken into pieces but also that healing is possible. It is not only a film about addiction, but about the challenging process of recovery, where that is a journey by itself, one day at a time.”

Amy shares these two lines in her book: “The edge is where I come from. The edge is my home.” Nora explains, “We wanted to create a poetic film where the images and atmosphere stay with you for a long time after watching. A film that takes you on a journey, not just to Orkney or London, but a spiritual journey into the inner world of a young woman, raised under extreme circumstances, searching for her place in life without alcohol.”

Synopsis:

Rona (Saoirse Ronan), from the Orkney islands of Scotland, heads to London to study biology where she falls in love with Daynin (Paapa Essiedu). After a ten-year span living life on the edge, immersed in heavy party scenes that woo her into a life of addiction—even Daynin cannot prevent Rona’s downward spiral toward self-destruction. It’s so egregious that Rona gradually loses everything and everyone she loved.

Lonely and ashamed she returns to her Scottish homeland to make amends with what she lost in the past decade. Reconnecting with the lives of her religious mother and bi-polar father challenges her inner world. Rona knows they both need her but suppresses her own needs and slowly begins to fall back into her old habits.

Rona’s escape is a summer job doing a survey of the elusive corncrake bird that takes her to every inhabited island of Orkney. Rona’s desire to strive toward a life of recovery propels her to spend the winter on the small island of Papay in a cottage designed for those seeking refuge. The combination of weathering the winter storms and connecting with the people in the small community provides Rona finds comfort, joy, and hope as she takes one day at a time towards recovery.