“The Outrun” review: Saoirse Ronan delivers an emotionally powerful performance

At first it's a shock. Is that really Saoirse Ronan, playing a passed-out drunk with a violent temper who reaches her lowest point when she staggers into a London pub at closing time, eager to sip leftover drinks and kicking and screaming when a bartender rushes her in drops the gutter? This from the actress who starred in the wholesome comedy Little Women. What is there?

What there is is The Outrun, a cinema-only addiction drama in which you can watch Ronan transcend the genre's standard dreary tropes thanks to an emotionally powerful performance, which should put her at the top of the Oscar race for Best Actress.

Ronan, who just turned 30 in April, already has four Oscar nominations to her name, starting with “Atonement” when she was just 13 years old and continuing with “Brooklyn,” “Lady Bird” and the aforementioned ” Little Women.” That was enough for the New York Times to include the Irish virtuoso in its list of “the greatest actors of the 21st century.”

In “The Outrun” Ronan shows her sensational and exciting side in the varied role of Rona, a biologist who lives in London with her boyfriend Daynin (the excellent Paapa Essiedu) and becomes increasingly impatient with the destructive hardcore party girl Rona has become .

After a harrowing stint in rehab during which she proclaims, “I can't be sober,” Rona heads home to Scotland's Orkney Islands, where her separated parents trigger childhood trauma that caused her to turn to drinking to survive escape. Her fanatically religious mother Annie (Saskia Reeves) works on a sheep farm, while her bipolar father Andrew (Stephen Dillane) suffers from delusional mood swings.

In the adaptation of Amy Liptrot's best-selling memoir, director Nora Fingscheidt – whose two previous films “System Crasher” and “The Unforgivable” also dealt with women in crisis – moves confusingly back and forth in time, leaving us to find our way by observing , as Rona changes her hair color – blue in London and orange as she tries to recover on the islands.

Admittedly, this setup seems familiar and off-putting to a TV movie. All signs point to another 12-step cliché-fest of torturous therapy and heartbreaking rehab before redemption finally occurs.

And all that until Rona finds a way to recovery by moving to the most remote part of the islands, where she accepts a commission from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to search for an endangered species of corncrake. Here, Rona's connection with nature, including the seals that seek shelter in the Orkneys, leads to finding a way forward.

Ronan, who served as a producer on the film alongside her actor husband Jack Lowden, gives every moment an intimate and epic feel. Rona often refers to the lore of Selkies, mythical creatures said to transform from a seal into a human in the pale moonlight. And suddenly “The Outrun” escapes the trap of recreational platitudes and rises to an ethereal, elemental level.

Of course, it all depends on Ronan's uncanny ability to take us places we've never been before. She does this with great attention to detail. There is nothing pretentious, nothing fake or theatrical in her performance. This is what makes Ronan unique and unforgettable. And so The Outrun flies on the wings of her artful magic.