18/02/2024 - BERLINALE 2024: In her adaptation of Amy Liptrot’s autobiography, Nora Fingscheidt sends Saoirse Ronan on a journey of abstinence, which is devoid not only of alcohol, but also direction

The gale is making the house shake. The soft green covering the rocky landscape is being dampened by the misty rain. Waves are crashing against a bastion of cliffs, breaking into the visual spectacle of ocean spray. The Scottish Orkney islands are a sight to behold – and beholding them is something that the viewer gets an abundance of. They are, after all, the refuge of Rona (Saoirse Ronan), who has returned home after a ten-year stint in London, replete with drugs and alcohol. Here, she is trying to overcome her illness.

After premiering at Sundance earlier this year, The Outrun [+see also:
trailer
interview: Nora Fingscheidt
film profile], Nora Fingscheidt’s adaptation of Amy Liptrot’s bestselling memoir, has had its European premiere in the Panorama section of the 74th Berlinale. Liptrot, who has been sober since 2011, chronicled her years in London, immersing herself in a life without limits but with plenty of addictive substances. Having completed a 90-day programme, with the real eye-opener being an attempted rape after a night of excess, she, or her film alter-ego Rona, returns home to Orkney, to get away from it all – the temptation, the depression that the city is causing. She can’t be happy without drinking, Rona says at one point. Her mission, therefore, is to find a purpose, a plane of existence that will give her peace.

On Orkney, the viewer gets a first glance at what might have caused Rona to go so dramatically overboard. While Fingscheidt abstains from ever painting one of the most remote points of the British Isles as lonely and boring, there is the schizophrenic and bipolar father (Stephen Dillane), who smoothly transitions between caring and insulting. Then there’s the evangelical mother (Saskia Reeves), who often looks on passively as Rona snaps at her and has no real recourse other than Jesus to help her daughter.

Fingscheidt, who co-wrote the script with Liptrot herself, refrains from offering a strictly linear narrative. Rona’s story is told by stringing together ideas, memories and key events, which allow the viewer to piece together certain revelations at a later point, thus constantly challenging the picture one has of this limited setting and this handful of characters.

That being said, the way the storyline jumps around, paired with the intensity of the moment, can be overwhelming and disengaging. And while Ronan once again proves that she is one of the finest actresses of her generation, the film offers too little. One learns a lot about Rona’s past, but there is minimal insight into her mind. Fingscheidt’s choice to use a highly dynamic camera language, emulating the blurry, faulty vision of an intoxicated person, is rather exhausting, rather than really being a gateway into her protagonist. The second part of the story, tracking Rona’s interest in the fauna of the islands, does at times seem like an absolution in waiting, something to tick off as the character’s final epiphany, rather than one of her smoothly interwoven interests.

Talking about drug and alcohol abuse is as relevant as ever, and few get to be so lucky to live a healthy and sober life as Amy Liptrot. But as a whole, the movie offers little more than an affirmative “she did it!” mentality, engulfed in an uneven narrative. Fingscheidt has made a career out of portraying women caught in difficult mental and societal circumstances. But while her breakthrough, System Crasher [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nora Fingscheidt
film profile], had a distinguishable guiding thread, The Outrun seems more like a collection of ideas that are expected to work on their own. It’s a message that could do with some more fine-tuning.

The Outrun was produced by the UK’s Brock Media, Arcade Pictures and MBK Productions as well as Germany’s Weydemann Bros., and is being sold internationally by Protagonist Pictures.