The Outrun (2024)

The critic highlights the sensationally directed and performed film, with Fingscheidt crafting a visceral experience of recovery and Ronan delivering a deeply affecting performance, balanced with humour and detail.

The vivid, pulsating film favours texture and experimentation over plot to convey what addiction feels like. Saoirse Ronan gives an astonishing full-body performance that could finally win her an Oscar.

The critic commends Saoirse Ronan's stunning, towering performance as Rona, noting the film's formal boldness and majestic depiction of Orkney, while handling traumas with care.

The film offers a sensitive, non-judgemental portrayal of addiction and mental illness but is sometimes baggy and repetitive in its final third. It is anchored by Saoirse Ronan's typically transcendent performance.

The review praises Ronan's performance as grounding the film, but criticizes the flashy directorial style and the film's tendency to make recovery seem too easy, with a strained catharsis.

Acknowledges Saoirse Ronan's authentic performance in this recovery drama but finds the somber, fragmented style overwhelmingly drab and lacking fire. Criticizes the meditative, free-form adaptation for failing to ignite despite stylish elements.

Notes Saoirse Ronan's compelling portrait of alcoholism and recovery but faults the undisciplined filmmaking, with shaky-cam, time-jumping, and narration turning it into a meandering travelogue rather than a focused drama. Singles out the lack of patient characterization amid the montage-like approach.

Finds the adaptation sincere but disappointingly constrained, with no creative or emotional risk in its telling of addiction and recovery. Criticizes the rushed, illustrative style that reduces scenes to fragments and limits the lead performance's depth.

Praises the film's tender exploration of recovery through nature and solitude, centered on Saoirse Ronan's career-best performance as an alcoholic rebuilding her life on the Orkney Islands. Highlights the inventive, non-linear structure and documentary-like interludes on island life as strengths that make the film surprising and emotionally resonant.

The critic finds Ronan's delicate performance gives grace and steel to this familiar addiction story, with a compassionate mix of optimism and pain in a modest, unfussy approach.

The critic praises the film's poetic, fragmented structure and Saoirse Ronan's performance as conveying defiant power in self-redemption, while noting some loss of secondary character nuance.

Nora Fingscheidt deftly captures the push-pull between chaotic urban nightlife and the quiet, sometimes suffocating landscapes of Orkney. Ronan soars with a raw, rough-edged performance that conveys both charisma and the pain of feeling adrift while navigating addiction and family mental illness through vivid natural metaphors.

The critic finds the film a refreshingly unconventional take on addiction recovery due to its fractured structure and focus on the present moment, praising the intelligence of the filmmaking and Ronan's performance, while noting it sometimes leans too heavily on shots of the protagonist in fields.

Saoirse Ronan delivers a turbulent, emotionally charged performance as a recovering alcoholic returning to her Orkney Islands roots. The drama is often punishing but punctuated by nature's transcendent power, with distinctive elements that elevate it beyond a standard addiction story.

Celebrates Saoirse Ronan's stunning performance in a recovery story about an alcoholic seeking healing on the remote Orkney Islands after rock bottom in London. Singles out Ronan's ability to elevate the familiar narrative into something beautiful and joyful despite occasional overdone elements.

The critic criticizes the stultifying structure, one-dimensional character, and Ronan's accent, finding it tedious.

Saoirse Ronan gives one of her most transcendent performances in this windswept drama about a woman rebuilding after addiction. The film shines through its intoxicating montages that capture both the allure of hedonistic abandon and its brutal consequences, using nature and myth to explore control and helplessness.

A meditative, introspective adaptation that captures the struggle for sobriety amid stark island beauty, anchored by Saoirse Ronan's career-defining turn as a resilient woman confronting her past.

The critic praises Nora Fingscheidt's lyrical adaptation for balancing depictions of sobriety's angsty boredom with alcohol's chaotic energy. The wind-blasted Orkney landscape and Saoirse Ronan's transcendent central performance are singled out as the film's chief strengths.

The film is a powerful addiction drama thanks to a magnificent performance by Saoirse Ronan and assured direction by Nora Fingscheidt that expertly handles a nonlinear structure. Some unnecessary narration is the only clumsy element in an otherwise assured and remarkable work.

Ronan's strong, non-showy lead performance and the film's visually compelling contrast between urban chaos and island tranquility stand out in this recovery drama, though it occasionally repeats and overstays its welcome.

The critic finds Nora Fingscheidt’s adaptation muddled in narrative structure and uneven in tone, despite smart directorial touches. They single out Saoirse Ronan’s emotionally raw central performance and the film’s ambitious visuals and recovery themes for praise.

The critic finds the film empathetic and authentic in its portrayal of recovery and fear, praising Saoirse Ronan's believable, understated performance as a woman navigating sobriety and family trauma on the Orkney Islands.