Berlin Film Festival 2024: Saoirse Ronan as an alcoholic in “The Outrun”

Panorama
Outrun
By Nora Fingscheidt
With Saoirse Ronan, Paapa Essiedu, Stephen Dillane…

Our First Impressions of “The Outrun” Movie:

This is one of the nice surprises of the Panorama section, a sensitive and haunting portrait of a young alcoholic woman who leaves to isolate herself with her family on the Orkney Islands, in the northeast of Scotland. A few opening scenes briefly explaining her arrival at her mother’s house and the fact that she helps out on her father’s farm, particularly tending to the sheep, reveal the film’s complex structure. Between attempts at repentance and sudden outbursts, carried only by an unusually febrile Saoirse Ronan, the film presents a disturbing picture, alternating between flashbacks to his evolution in isolation and his relationships, his craving for alcohol and attempts at therapy.

Thanks to an immersive staging that gives pride of place to the sensibilities of this anti-heroine, director Nora Fingscheid makes us feel abandoned and lacking, using blur, an unsteady camera, and the occasional split of a character’s face. By making parallels with local legends and the vibrations of nature (especially the collision of powerful waves), it is the hope of mastering the elements of himself and his surroundings that invite us to this dark picture, which is also their importance in the family and transmission.