Review of The Outrun, directed by Nora Fingscheidt

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

About a year ago (at the time of typing this) I quit my job as a professional film critic to explore what was out there in the world when it came to publishing about the movies and books I wanted to see, not just what was popular in the moment. Digital media and working within it can be fun and all, but it can be grinding when you’re just chasing after all the latest trends and clicks for SEO.

I started this blog four years ago, during the pandemic, but never really took it seriously beyond the occasional post here and there about what I was up to. In 2023 I began to realize the impact this blog was having on me, and other people were reaching out about reading it, so I expanded. Once I quit my job, I decided to focus on the blog more while job hunting, as I do make a few pennies here and there from the display ads on the screen.

In May 2025 I spontaneously went on a Europe trip. I had purchased a tour through EF Ultimate Break back in December 2024 after learning my Indian visa was denied, leaving me unemployed and without any prospects in the near future. In order to make myself feel better, I booked this Europe trip, even though it was a little bit out of my price range,

I wrote about the entire trip on the blog, but I will say that it felt like it was worth it in the end, even if I was a little more broke at the end of the day. I could entirely afford it, but I could have saved that money. Anyways, this connects to The Outrun because I watched this movie while on my British Airways flight to London, which had the nice screens and an option of British films for patrons to watch.

And in order to not go insane during the flight, I picked The Outrun as my movie of choice because of the fact it had Saoirse Ronan in it. I will say in advance of the review portion of this post: now I kind of want to go to the countryside in Ireland, England, and Scotland.

Let’s get into the review!

A young woman returns to her rural hometown to recover after lapsing into alcoholism.

This movie isn’t told in chronological order, but for the sake of my sanity and the clarity of the summary portion of this blog post I’m going to actually put it in order. Thanks in advance for understanding!

Our main character in this movie is Rona. She’s from the Scottish countryside, specifically some islands called Orkney, but she left home in order to go to London and study biology. There, she was a graduate student and excelling in what she did, but in her free time she would often go to the clubs.

Eventually she began dating Daynin, who would become her partner. But Rona, who already had a penchant for booze in her daily life, begins slipping into habits where she is a straight up alcoholic. In her shared flat she hides the bottles and drinks them secretly in the bathroom, and this sparks some problems between Daynin and her, especially when she embarrasses him in front of his coworkers.

The final straw is when they get into yet another argument, and Daynin decides it’s time to pack up and move on. Rona doesn’t want him to leave, but she can’t exactly give up the alcohol yet for her relationship. Him leaving makes her devastated, but she continues to get blackout drunk and is even attacked one night while under the influence.

This is what makes her get her act together and join a sobriety program. It’s only for ninety days, which puts up back in the present day on Orkney. Rona has come to the island to try and become a better person for herself, but struggles to connect with anyone on the island nor does she feel like she has a purpose.

She tries to leave on the ferry but comes back anyways after getting the impulse to reach for a drink. She finds a job with a bird protection society in the UK, and she now has to track and find a rare bird called the corn crake. Now, she spends her days listening for its distinctive call.

At the same time, her father, who struggles with bipolar disorder, is having issues with his mental health. Rona is the only one coming to take care of him and check up on his wellbeing, and when she finds him in an episode, she tries her best.

But it’s during one of these episodes that she grabs one of his drinks and tastes it, creating a moment of relapse for her, too. The society then gives her a job on a different remote island, and she moves to a tiny cabin and meets the people who live here. She spends the entire winter there, bonding with the grocery store owner who was also an alcoholic, and learns to become the person she wanted to be.

As she leaves the island in the spring, though, she finally hears the corn crake and starts laughing that now she finally gets to hear its mysterious voice.

Overall Thoughts

This is probably not the kind of movie you should be watching on a flight to your vacation, as it can be a little depressing, but I was really glad I watched this! Saoirse Ronan is magnetic in almost every role I’ve seen her in, and she really makes this role hers, especially considering how heavy the subject matter is.

The nonlinear format works really well for this story as well, as we begin with Rona being depressed about her life and circumstances. The more we unlock in this puzzle the more we start feeling for her, as we see how she once had love and lost it—and they were really great together, they had a lot of chemistry.

This is also just a realistic movie. There are a lot of alcoholics out there in the world and we even see that in how Rona bonds with the grocery store owner. She feels a little less alone then, and in her sobriety program, which is why we need groups and open discussion about healing and getting over something we deem a problem.

I say go watch this one if you’re interested and can find it online. I haven’t seen it on US streaming anywhere, hence why I wanted to watch it on the plane too.

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