'Here, you'll like this, it's a book of nature writing about a place where it's very cold and windy a lot of the time and so remote you probably won't know where it is on the map – oh, and there's some writing about local folklore, and the International Space Station, and – I nearly forgot – it's also a kind of journal of the writer's recovery from what sounds like pretty severe substance abuse problems. No rush, but I would like it back when you've finished it.'

If your response to the foregoing would be something along the lines of 'Gosh, thanks ever so, but I'm still catching up with the last couple of Rivers of London,' then I completely empathise with you. I would probably have done the same. The prospect of actually going to see a film adaptation of a book which is a nature travelogue/folkloric rumination/alcoholism recovery journal would not normally pique my interest either. In fact it would probably be anti-piqued, even if the film was getting better crits than Joker 2 (not that this is especially difficult of course).

And yet here we are about to survey The Outrun, directed by Nora Fingscheidt and based on Amy Liptrot's book of the same name. I will be honest and say that if the Donald Trump biopic and Venom 3 had both been in the week I saw it, The Outrun would probably have dropped off my films-to-see list, regardless of how interesting the trailer was. But as it turned out, there wasn't much new to see that week (not going near Terrifier 3, thank you very much), and the trailer did look interestingly different.

This is one of those films which has little truck with such old-fashioned ideas as doing a story in chronological order: events from the life of its protagonist (Saoirse Ronan) appear in what initially seems to be a random sequence. (Amy Liptrot's name has been changed to Rona in the script, presumably to help people remember the Ronan = Rona thing.) But, we soon realise, her life really is all broken up, thanks to the effects of full-blown alcoholism. A promising post-graduate career in biology and a long-term relationship are the most obvious things to suffer, and an unwanted close encounter of a potentially life-changing kind leads to Rona putting herself into rehab in London.

Having been through this, she retreats to the family home in Orkney (that's at the far top of Scotland, in case you were wondering) and divides her time between her parents' home – her father (Stephen Dillane) has a long history of issues of his own, specifically relating to manic-depressive episodes, while her mother's fix of choice is the Holy Spirit, as she has found God in a fairly big way. Rona finds her father much easier to get on with.

How do you know when you are well enough to go home and resume your life when you have been through a situation like this one? Are you ever really well again? The film openly suggests that alcoholics and other addicts are left permanently scarred by their experiences. Rona herself learns, eventually, that while you can outrun some of the things that are chasing you, the one thing you can never outrun is yourself.

Wow, reading that back, it sounds bleak, doesn't it? I'm really not doing this film any favours. Well, I'll be straight with you, constant reader, you have to do this kind of story honestly and respectfully or you risk trivialising the experiences of people who have actually lived it. The question is how you do that – how you put the darkness and misery and loss of control and ugly chaos up on the screen – without alienating and driving away even the most sympathetic and open-minded of audiences.

The Outrun really isn't very much like Trainspotting, except from the slightly facile perspective that they're both set in Scotland and at least in part about addiction, but in those limited terms you can probably usefully compare them. Trainspotting goes for trying to explain why people waste their lives on drugs, suggesting that the hedonistic hit is worth – or seems worth – the rest of it. (I suppose you could argue that just as people with ADD are 'time discounters', who struggle to make good judgements about what it's worth making future plans about, so addicts are 'pain discounters', who likewise have difficulty recognising the negative future consequences of a few minutes or hours of ecstasy now.)

The Outrun takes a different approach, being rather more meditative (at one point we even see Ronan meditating, so that must be the right word). There's a queasy sense of desperation about the scenes of Rona drinking – there are bottles stashed around the house, of course – which is counterbalanced by the harsh but beautiful scenery of the Orkneys and the very small island where she eventually ends up. There's a deep sense of regret but not much one of judgement, and of course the suggestion that Rona's alcoholism has parallels with both of her parents' various religious and mental health issues.

I have to say that previously I've never quite understood why the fuss about Saoirse Ronan has been so exceptional – I mean, I've never actually seen her be flat-out bad in anything, I suppose, although she was given a run for her money by Margot Robbie in Mary Queen of Scots (back when people tended not to take Robbie that seriously). It may just be that, a bit like Keira Knightley, she's ended up doing a lot of costume dramas, a genre that doesn't do a lot for me. (I did enjoy Lady Bird, which isn't a costume drama.) Anyway, she's extremely good here, entirely convincing at all points without ever appearing to be overdoing things. Given her track record I wouldn't be at all surprised if this performance attracted awards attention, though it might be a shock if it won one of the big prizes.

In the end The Outrun isn't a depressing film at all – at least, not when it counts. It's a bit of a cliche that this kind of movie ends with the protagonist, having attained a measure of peace for the time being, smiling in the sunshine, but here it feels earned and authentic, and the journey to this point is never less than engrossing and satisfying. This is quite a wise and beautiful film, I think.

Awix

28.10.24 Front Page

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