‘The Outrun’ Review: Saoirse Ronan Shines in a Muddled Story of Sobriety

Sundance 2024: Nora Fingscheidt’s adaptation of Amy Liptrot’s memoir can’t strike the right tone

the-outrun
Saoirse Ronan in "The Outrun" (Photo by The Outrun Film Ltd – Roy Imer, courtesy of Sundance)

Sobriety is a journey that only the pure of heart can conquer. It requires nothing else of you but the willingness to try and try again, and those who do so will always be commendable in the face of life’s greatest challenges. So when faced with these particular kinds of underdog alcoholic recovery stories on-screen, there’s an expectation that they all have to fit a similar mold.

The fact is that they don’t, but they do need to give us a narrative structure that allows the audience to take something away from the film, whether that’s the filmmaker’s message or one the story imbues within them.

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