The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on 19 January 2024. It was released by StudioCanal in the United Kingdom on 27 September 2024 and in Germany on 5 December.
Plot
The story is told in a non-linear fashion. Rona, a young woman recently out of rehab for alcoholism, returns home to the Orkney Islands in Scotland.[1][7] Her parents, originally from England, are separated. Staying with them alternately, she helps her father on his farm and meets her mother's religious friends.
In flashbacks, we see Rona's previous life as a biology graduate student in London, finding freedom in clubbing and meeting a serious boyfriend, Daynin. However, Rona's drinking turns to alcoholism, causing problems in her relationship, and unintentional injury. Eventually, Daynin leaves her. One night, she is attacked while drunk. Soon afterwards, she enters rehab and completes a 90-day sober program.
Back on Orkney, Rona struggles to connect with others. She decides to return to London, but on the ferry, feels an overwhelming urge to drink, and abandons her plan to leave. She takes a job with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), which involves a systematic search for the now-rare corn crake. She listens at assigned hours for its distinctive frog-like call. Rona's father has bipolar disorder, and when she comes across him in a depressive and non-responsive state, she takes a taste from his abandoned wineglass, leading to a brief relapse.
Soon afterwards, Rona gets a job with the RSPB on the remote Papa Westray island, home to a tiny community. Living by herself, she connects with some of the other islanders, including a fellow alcoholic who runs the grocery. Throughout a windy winter on Papa Westray, she develops an interest in seaweed biology and grows healthier. As she prepares to depart that spring, she hears the call of a corn crake for the first time and laughs in delight.
In January 2022, it was announced Nora Fingscheidt would direct a film adaptation of Amy Liptrot's memoir The Outrun, with Saoirse Ronan set to star and produce, and Fingscheidt and Liptrot writing the screenplay.[7] Production commenced in Orkney in August 2022.[8] Ronan's husband, actor Jack Lowden, also served as one of the film's producers.[9] In an interview with The Times, Ronan credited Lowden for suggesting the role to her.[10]
StudioCanal is the film's distributor in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Austria. The film was theatrically released in the United Kingdom on 27 September 2024,[11] and later in Germany on 5 December.[12] Protagonist Pictures is overseeing worldwide sales for the film, with CAA Media Finance also selling North American rights. The film was sold to Filmcoopi and Cineworx for Switzerland, Cinéart for Benelux and Stage 6 Films for all other international territories excluding North America.[1] On 12 July 2024, Stage 6 was announced to be partnering with sister company Sony Pictures Classics on the film's North American release, scheduling it for a theatrical release on 4 October 2024.[13] The movie was released on Netflix in the UK and US in February and March 2025.[14]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 82% of 154 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.5/10.The website's consensus reads: "Benefiting from Saoirse Ronan's deeply committed performance in the central role, The Outrun proves a moving portrait of addiction in spite of its somewhat shapeless narrative."[18]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 72 out of 100, based on 43 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[19]
The Guardian's Adrian Horton termed it "a moving and delicate adaptation" that "avoid[ed] the many cliches of the cinematic memoir adaptation", and took particular note of "Ronan's good performance".[20] David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "Fingscheidt’s third narrative feature continues her visceral explorations of the scarred female psyche" and added that Ronan "puts herself through the physical and emotional wringer" in an "emotionally charged performance".[21]
Alissa Wilkinson in The New York Times writes that Saoirse Ronan's greatness as an actor is in giving viewers the feeling "that her characters' minds are always working", using her eyes and the slightest of facial expressions to convey, in the case of The Outrun, a cheeky "impishness". Far from the conventional screen handling of addiction, "brash or hyperbolic", Ronan makes the film "into a thing of beauty and hard-won joy."[22]
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