The Outrun

After living life on the edge in London, Rona (Saoirse Ronan) attempts to come to terms with her troubled past. She returns to the wild beauty of Scotland’s Orkney Islands — where she grew up — hoping to heal. Adapted from the bestselling memoir by Amy Liptrot this recovery drama puts one of our greatest screen actresses centre stage in a stunning natural setting.

A marvel to behold; The Outrun is the rare two-hour movie that made me forget to check the time. That it does so while avoiding the many cliches of the cinematic memoir adaptation – films that contort life’s sprawl into a clear arc of definitive scenes – is its own achievement, a testament to the source material and Ronan’s tremendous performance […] It’s an incredibly effective portrait of a reeling mind, the visual language of intrusive thoughts and rabbit holes. Flashbacks accumulate like the bottles on Rona’s floor. There’s a familiar dread to her descent, as she confuses the repetitive loop of benders with freedom, extremity with living, and lashes out at anyone who tries to ground her. Sobriety would be the worst crime of all: boring. Ronan is at once titanic and quiet, utterly convincing…

Adrian Horton, The Guardian

Ronan is no ordinary actress, and she makes The Outrun into a thing of beauty and hard-won joy.

Alissa Wilkinson, New York Times

The Outrun celebrates rebirth, the spirit of a curious mind, and the restorative powers of nature. It’s a gorgeous artifact that works beautifully one innovative frame at a time, centered on Ronan’s soaring and soul-restoring performance.

Tomris Laffly, rogerebert.com