the fight of a young woman against alcoholism, galvanized by the telluric force of the northern islands of Scotland

This adaptation of Amy Liptrot’s book is carried by the American-Irish actress Saoirse Ronan, very inhabited by the magnificent character of Rona.

After Benni And Unforgivablebroadcast only on Netflix, The Outrun the third feature film by German director Nora Fingscheidt is an adaptation of the autobiographical novel by Scottish writer and journalist Amy Liptrot. It tells the long and difficult journey of a young Scottish woman to cure her addiction to alcohol and her depression linked in part to her father’s bipolar disorder. Deployed in a powerful staging in keeping with the elements of these wind-whipped Scottish islands, The Outrun (“The Gap”) is released in theaters on October 2, 2024.

After yet another drama linked to her addiction and unsuccessful attempts to get out of it, Rona (Saoirse Ronan), in her thirties, decides to leave London and return to his family on the main island of Orkney, in the north of Scotland. The young woman grew up there with her father suffering from mental illness and with her mother, who took refuge in religion to support the illness of her husband, regularly subject to acute attacks.

Back home, Rona helps her father with the sheep, then she gets hired by a nature preservation association which has launched a major campaign to reintroduce a bird, the king quail, which is endangered.

By reconnecting with this life in contact with nature and with her parents, Rona is assailed by memories of her childhood with a whimsical and sick father. She also looks back on her life as a biology student in London, her party nights, which saw her gradually sink into alcoholism.

Unable to bear the abstinence, the separation from her lover who ended up leaving her, Rona decides to isolate herself even more and settles in a small house beaten by the winds on the island of Papay, one of the smallest in the archipelago. There, in extreme solitude and in contact with the power of the elements, thanks also to the modest and caring presence of the island’s inhabitants, she finally finds a little serenity.

The director navigates these three temporalities as memory does, randomly, in a present constantly assailed by reminiscences which arise without warning, dross from this past “who follows us”.

The camera follows the undulations of present time and that of memories in a staging carried out with great freedom. Irish-American actress Saoirse Ronan, seen in Lady Bird And The Daughters of Doctor March, hold this moving character high who fights like hell to get better and get rid of the alcohol and the ghosts that hinder his life.

Filmed in the very places where Amy Liptrot spent two winters alone to write her book, the film features nature as a constitutive element of the dramaturgy. This melee between Rona and the vibrations of her island ends up creating for Rona a “personal geology”which opens a path for her to accept the world as it is, and also herself and her history.

A very successful film, which puts a singular form of great accuracy at the service of this inner journey. Amy Liptrot’s book is republished by Pocket on October 3, 2024 to coincide with the release of the film.

Gender : Drama
Director: Nora Fingscheidt
Actors: Saoirse Ronan, Paapa Essiedu, Stephen Dillane
Country : Great Britain, Germany, Spain
Duration : 1h58
Exit : October 2, 2024
Distributer : UFO Distribution
Synopsis : Rona, almost thirty, burns out her life in excess and loses herself in the London nights. After the breakdown of her relationship and to cope with her addictions, she found refuge in Orkney, the islands in the north of Scotland where she grew up. Through contact with his family and the inhabitants of the archipelago, childhood memories come back and mingle, until they merge, with those of his urban trips. It is there, in this wild nature that crosses it, that it will find a new breath, fragile but more powerful every day.