RECOVERY MOVIE MEET-UPs Reviews
THE OUTRUN
Starring Saoirse Ronan, Paapa Essiedu & Saskia Reeves
Written by Amy Liptrot (based on her memoir) & Nora Fingscheidt
Directed by Nora Fingscheidt
Streaming on Netflix
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The title THE OUTRUN carries with it a haunting irony—perhaps it suggests the futility of trying to outrun addiction. Eventually, people have to stop. They have to face it. And that central reckoning lies at the heart of this hypnotic, emotionally resonant film.
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Metaphor runs like blood through the veins of this story. Early on, we’re introduced to the myth of the selkies—seal people who come ashore at night, shedding their skins to dance in human form. But if they don’t return to the sea by morning, they’re trapped—disconnected, forever yearning, dissatisfied with their fate. It’s a chillingly apt allegory for addiction and alienation: the lost rhythm of life, the danger of staying too long in the wrong shape.
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As part of Recovery Movie Meet-Ups Programs, we often explore films for their therapeutic potential—the way a story can reflect, affirm, or challenge a viewer's personal journey through recovery (be it addiction, mental health challenges, or both). THE OUTRUN does this—and more. Led by the ethereally beautiful and supremely talented Irish actress Saoirse Ronan as Rona, a young biologist struggling against alcohol addiction, it’s not just a film of substance; it’s a triumph of style as therapy.
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We can largely thank the cinematography for this. Granted, when you're shooting a place as visually lustrous as the Orkney Island off the coast of Scotland, there aren't many ways to get it wrong, but Director of Photography Yanus Roy Imer also manages to capture personal moments in close up that are every bit as spectacular as the wide shots.
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What's more, he poignantly renders the visual language of addiction—euphoria, disorientation, and despair—with remarkable fidelity: double vision, blurring, surreal fragmentation. We experience intoxication viscerally, not glamorized but destabilizing, dizzying, and at times terrifying. These choices don’t just depict addiction; they implicate the viewer in it. It's the closest you can get to feeling it, without crossing the line into it.
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These scenes might be triggering for some viewers—but in the Recovery Movie Meetups Program, we recognize that triggers can be useful. THE OUTRUN doesn’t make drinking look seductive; it makes it look like hell. Add to this a soundtrack that scratches at your nerves, editing that jars you from comfort, and yet all of it is wrapped in a beauty that reflects just how deceptive addiction can be. It's a powerful contrast to the protagonist’s own admission that sobriety doesn’t make her feel happy. The visual tension speaks louder: happiness and healing are not the same.​​
And then there is nature. The setting—wind-torn cliffs, ocean spray, green hills—is not just backdrop, it’s a character, a force. Many recovery narratives touch on the restorative power of nature, but few integrate it this fully. There's a moment—spoiler alert—when the protagonist removes her headphones and actually listens to the world around her. That simple act marks a turning point, and it’s one of the most deeply human moments in the film.
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At the heart of THE OUTRUN lies a quietly devastating portrait of intergenerational pain. Rona's father, who lives with bipolar disorder, is a spectral presence throughout the film—rarely centered, but always felt. His illness is rendered with sensitivity and restraint: we see him in fragments—lying inert under a blanket, legs stumbling as he’s escorted away by the police, bound in a straight jacket in a wheelchair, brief glimpses of manic energy followed by crushing silence. The film resists melodrama, choosing instead to show how mental illness doesn’t always explode; sometimes it erodes. His absence during key emotional moments—particularly during Rona's childhood—is not villainized, but it is presented as a root wound, a kind of invisible inheritance.
This fractured parental bond forms the emotional scaffolding of Rona's addiction. She turns to alcohol not for pleasure, but for regulation—to calm the storms her nervous system was trained to weather alone. Her mother found solace in religion, a structure to make sense of chaos, but the daughter has no such framework—only the numbing embrace of alcohol. In one of the film’s most harrowing moments, when she seeks comfort from her father and finds him unreachable, her relapse isn’t portrayed as a fall from grace but as a tragic inevitability. Addiction, in this story, is not a standalone affliction; it is the echo of unmet needs, of fear unanswered, of growing up in an environment where safety was never guaranteed. And that, more than anything, is what makes THE OUTRUN such a compassionate and complex work—it refuses to simplify the why.
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​​The movie does a wonderful job of portraying AA meetings with understated grace and poignancy. They're awkward, tender, often somber, occasionally funny—no dramatic breakthroughs, just the slow, steady work of recovery in groups. And yes, sometimes they can be tedious, the chairs half-filled, the room too quiet. But people show up. They need to. But they also want to. And films like THE OUTRUN confirm what we already know—that mutual support meetings of any kind, however formulaic or repetitive, are a crucial part of recovery.
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One scene in particular stands out: a conversation Rona has with an older man, sober for many years, who now runs a liquor store. It’s an irony not lost on the viewer, but also a reminder that wisdom and support can come from unexpected places. As much as Rona—like many newbies who seek out the wisdom of the old-timers—hopes he'll reveal "the secret formula," he doesn’t offer any magical advice. There isn't any. He only proffers his truth, that even after over a decade sober, his struggles are lived "one day at a time." There are no shortcuts. Just the work.
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The final montage—no spoilers here—is among the most emotionally powerful cinematic expressions of the proverbial "a-ha moment" in recovery that I’ve ever seen. It captures not just healing, but transcendence, with a rhythm and poetry that feel almost spiritual. And ultimately heroic as well. Because as all the movies in the Recovery Movie Meetups Program show in their unique ways, the process of waging battle against the seductive pull of oblivion, of choosing to feel something rather than nothing, is nothing short of an act of courage. To face the wreckage, to sit with discomfort, to rebuild a life piece by piece without the anesthetic of addiction—this is a quiet heroism, often unseen and uncelebrated, but deeply profound. THE OUTRUN honors that heroism not with fanfare, but with honesty, beauty, and reverence.
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Available now on NETFLIX.
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The dialogue is heavily Irish-accented and may be difficult to understand for some, so subtitles or closed captions are recommended.
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Ted Perkins
Founder & CEO