Trailer at the link.
At last, a worthy 2024 release to bring to your attention. I do not mean to suggest that there have been no decent movies this year. But I have two threshold requirements for recommendations here:
(1) The movie should be new, or at least newish, in response to the voices in the peanut gallery who insist that Hollywood (or the movie industry more generally) hasn't made anything good since [drop in your walkaway date]; and
(2) The movie should be "conservative," in the sense that it is set in a morally coherent universe, doesn't cheat, and gives scope for conservative moral, philosophical, political or religious themes to breathe.
When it comes to movie threads, freepers seem to be strong on science fiction, westerns and war movies. There are pockets of support for other genres and we all have our favorites here and there; of these, movies about alcoholism and recovery often draw interest. There have been many of these over the years. I am starting to suspect this is a subject that people in the film industry know something about and might have some personal experience with. When you stop to think about it, it is amazing (or maybe not) how many of the best actors have been drawn to these stories. It's quite a list.
Anyhow, the industry keeps returning to the story. The last two that I've seen have been A Good Person (2023, Morgan Freeman, Florence Pugh) and To Leslie (2022, Andrea Riseborough and an excellent supporting cast). Both are solid and well meaning, but they struck me as a bit formulaic and predictable. The Outrun, at least to me, felt fresh. This of course starts with selling the characters, and Saoirse Ronan knocks it out of the park, which we by now expect from her. She is in the chatter for another Oscar nomination for this role; she's already been nominated for Atonement, Brooklyn, Lady Bird, and Little Women. I would vote for her; her turn as Rona in The Outrun is the best piece of acting I have seen this year. If you need a couple of movies to root for in the Oscars next time around, put this on your list. It might be some mentions for best adapted screenplay as well, and I would not be surprised if it gets a mention for cinematography.
Yes, Saoirse Ronan plays Rona. Try not to be confused. Rona is the one with freckles.:)
The Outrun felt old-fashioned to me (with one asterisk), and I mean that in a way that is a compliment, not a criticism. The movie plays alcoholism, hitting bottom and the beginning of recovery perfectly straight; Jack Klugman's character from Days of Wine and Roses could have turned up in any of the AA scenes and felt right at home. With a runtime of just under two hours, the movie gives its characters room to breathe. There are now forced plot gimmicks to try to get an unexpected twist in a story with a very familiar outline.
The asterisk is the use of nonlinear storytelling. The story is set primarily in the present time, where Rona has returned to her childhood home in the Orkneys to try to restart after her crash and burn in London. We see a few childhood scenes that sketch in family background; scattered scenes of Rona in London as a hard-partying young woman -- well educated with a promising future and a nice boyfriend, but deep in trouble before she knows it -- early recovery scenes in London; the inevitable relapse; and a long, hard slog to (maybe) stable recovery in the islands. A happy ending? No, there are no miracle cures; at the end she is far enough along to feel able to return to her professional path in London with a purpose, but she's a survivor who has finally accepted one day at a time. We wish her well, but we don't know how it will turn out. Neither does she.
I thought it was very well done, and Ronan completely sells the character. You will be rooting for her, and that's essential for this kind of movie to work.
The other two alcoholism/recovery movies I've mentioned -- A Good Person and To Leslie -- felt a bit melodramatic to me. This must be a very fine line to walk as a filmmaker; there are plenty of real life crash and burn stories that are every bit as melodramatic as anything demented Hollywood screenwriters might come up with. But on the other hand, the more common pattern (I think) is a long, slow descent, a death by inches, and then a long, slow recovery, also by inches, and it must be hard to turn these into compelling drama unless the alcoholism story is thoroughly backgrounded and emerges through indirection. If that story is going to be foregrounded ... well, you end up with Jack Lemon in The Days of Wine and Roses (1962) smashing up his father-in-law's greenhouse and uprooting plants looking for his hidden bottle. The Outrun's touch is much lighter, with the roughest moments glimpsed momentarily in very quick flashbacks ... but in this case, the story is based on a well-received memoir by Amy Liptrot, a Scottish gal who did indeed grow up on Orkney, did indeed have a schizophrenic and bipolar father and a mother who turned to religion to cope, and who did indeed crash hard in London in her 20's. I will withhold the criticism of melodrama if the story is true (or mostly true).
The Outrun is currently in theaters. If you still go to theaters, consider it. The theater will not be crowded and you do not need to worry about misbehaving idiots in the audience. This is not an idiot bait movie; there is no flying spandex, and there are no death stars, velociraptors, zombie apocalypses, or terrorist attacks. The theater will be quiet.
An overdue movie ping.
P.S. You don’t have to register to open the link. Just click on “I’ll do it later.”
No thanks. Daily life is depressing enough. 😏
On surface review, if the value of a film can be gauged by: there is no flying spandex, and there are no death stars, velociraptors, zombie apocalypses, or terrorist attacks.
...well then, you have a winner here...
...yet to me, this is just another exercise in femdung navel-gazing.
I don't know, a drunk struggling to sober up, no matter how attractive she (Saorsie) is, is just a sighing, ho-hum of a 1st-world-problem movie.
IOW, not interested.
Maybe that's "just me", though.
Sorry. No thank you.
Sorry. No thank you.
As part of the auditions, they made the actors say “Saoirse” to see how they sounded slurring like a drunk.
I never heard of this. It will be forgotten. The best thing out there right now is the Max series of The Penguin. It is really awesome.