The Outrun, adapted by German director Nora Fingscheidt from Amy Liptrot’s bestselling memoir, is set against the rough and beautiful landscapes of Scotland’s Orkney Islands. This is home ground for Rona, (Saorise Ronan in another of her breathtaking performances after Brooklyn, Little Women, and Lady Bird). She grew up on a sheep farm there and has returned after spending some time in rehab.
Flashbacks throughout the film establish Rona’s life as a party-crazy alcoholic in London with a dutiful boyfriend. After one particularly bad evening, she goes to a counselor and asks to be sent to rehab. There she learns the one-day-at-a-time approach to addiction recovery. It’s tough, and we are viewers often question whether she will make it.
On the islands, she also remembers what it was like growing up with a bipolar father (Stephen Dillane), who still needs her support. Her parents are divorced now, and her mother (Saskia Reeves) has turned to the church for solutions.
A biologist by training, Rona volunteers with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Her job is to identify habitats of the corncrake, which is rare in those parts; she has to listen for the bird’s distinctive call. A small collage in an isolated windswept area becomes the setting for whatever changes she can manage.
“Nature connection is an antidote for all forms of addiction, because it activates oxytocin and serotonin and heals our nervous system. It is a remedy for trauma.”
— Rebecca Wildbear in Wild Yoga
Many recovery films focus on the AA program, the importance of going to meetings, and day-by-day checking in with others on how recovery is going. Rona has none of this behind her, but she does have what Belden Lane called “the solace of a fierce landscape.” She declares:
“My body is a continent. I grind my teeth in my sleep like tetonic plates and when I blink the sun flickers. My breath pushes the clouds across the sky and the waves roll into the shore in time with my beating heart. The islands headlands rise above the sea like my limbs in the bathtub. My freckles are famous landmarks and my tears rivers.”
Watch for the surprise at the end that signals how she has connected with her surroundings.