“Sometimes you can feel a vibration in Orkney—a low rumble that takes over the whole island and every part of your body,” Rona narrates.
The same might be said about Rona’s alcoholism.
The urge—the need—to drink comes out of nowhere. One day, Rona’s fine. The next, she suddenly feels as if she must find the nearest drop of alcohol, lest she perish. The desire overwhelms her, and the moment a drop touches her tongue, she’s given over to it.
Rona knows she has a problem. It’s the reason why Daynin, her boyfriend, left her. It’s why she’s come back to consciousness covered in scratches and bruises, unsure of how she got them. It’s why, after a traumatic experience related to her drinking, Rona went through rehab and returned home to her father’s farm in the Orkney Islands.
But despite the change of scenery, the familiar-yet-different faces and the escape from London’s unrelenting energy, Rona’s still haunted by her addiction. Even as the number of her days sober grows, she’s still acutely aware of the compulsion to drink within her—and the knowledge of how quickly those days can plummet back to zero.
And if they do, then Rona will just have to start again.
Rona’s struggle against her alcohol dependency is depicted in difficult and realistic ways. Her journey is marked with a counter depicting how many days she’s been sober—a counter which, after a moment of weakness leads back to her destructive choices—restarts from the beginning. The Outrun makes it clear that recovering from addiction is by no means an easy path—but it’s a path that’s worth walking in any case. And even if you stumble and have to start over, the movie tells us, it’s important to not let that discouraging moment prevent you from beginning again.
At one point, a man spots Rona and recognizes that she, like him, is recovering from alcoholism. He’s been sober for more than a decade, and he advises Rona that the journey is still, even for him, taken one day at a time. Though avoiding the temptation gets easier over time, the man makes a point to clarify that “it never gets easy; it just gets less hard.”
The film doesn’t shy away from the consequences of such addiction, either. Rona’s compulsive drinking eventually pushes her boyfriend, Daynin, out of her life. While it’s clear that Daynin cares for Rona and tried to help her overcome her problem, it eventually became too much for him. Despite her repeated assurances that she’d quit alcohol for good, Daynin has grown weary of seeing those promises broken, over and over again.
We likewise hear about similar consequences from a friend whom Rona makes at rehab. He says that though he genuinely loves his children, his addiction to cocaine has prevented him from being able to see them for years. Furthermore, Rona narrates, in documentary-like style, how alcoholism can permanently damage neural pathways in the brain. These moments confront viewers with the painful and poignant reality that, even for recovering alcoholics, the consequences of their addiction may linger for the rest of their lives.
Rona’s parents attempt to help her as much as they can. Rona’s father provides her a place to stay while she works on the farm with him. Her mother (who’s divorced from her father) likewise counsels and prays for her, attempting to provide Rona with a support community and letting Rona stay in her home, too.
Rona’s mother, Annie, is a devout Christian, much to Rona’s chagrin. She prays for Rona, and we later see her (and other women in an apparent Bible study) thank God for their meal. One of the women invites Rona to a healing service, which causes Rona to become upset that her mother would share her struggle with the strangers. “Don’t start reading the Bible without me,” Rona jeers. Annie briefly touches on how tough life was before she found God. “Or, rather, God found me,” Annie says.
Later, in a drunken rant, Rona angrily lambasts her mother for her spiritual convictions, yelling things such as, “He’s not real,” “You chose them over us” and accusing her mother of being “brainwashed.” It culminates in a final “all that praying didn’t help me” before Rona falls asleep. Annie nevertheless listens graciously provides her daughter with a place to sleep.
Attendees of Alcoholics Anonymous pray the Serenity Prayer at the beginning of their meeting: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.”
We briefly see Rona attempt a sort of transcendental meditation.
A narrator tells of two different creatures in Orcadian mythology: the selkie and the Mester Stoor Worm. The former involves a myth about people who drowned, then turned into seals. The latter describes a creation narrative, wherein the Orkney Islands were created from the broken teeth of a massive, defeated sea serpent.
We see Rona in a transparent bra. Rona and Daynin go skinny-dipping in a pool, and we briefly see their naked rears. In another scene, Rona and a man have sex while intoxicated, and we see sexual movements. We also see Rona and Daynin cuddling while naked in bed, though nothing is seen. Rona makes a reference to having an orgasm. Women swim in bathing suits. Rona and Daynin kiss.
A man attempts to rape an intoxicated Rona—the scene is chaotic, and the man is forced to flee when other men come to Rona’s aid before he can succeed. We later see the extent of his assault: Rona has bruises, scratches and a black eye.
While intoxicated, Rona cuts her hand on broken glass, and she smacks her head into a wall. We later see that the incident left cuts on Daynin’s hands, too, when he tried to stop her. Likewise, she throws a bottle that hits a man in the head, causing him to bleed. Rona also hits a security guard.
Rona’s father suffers from bipolar swings, and his intense and even threatening manic moments cause a young Rona terror. In one instance, we see him break a window to allow a strong windstorm to sweep through the home.
Rona finds a dead lamb and chucks its corpse into a bin.
The f-word is used roughly 15 times, and the s-word is used five times. “A–” is heard twice, and “h—” and “p-ss” are both used once. God’s name is used in vain eight times, and Jesus’ name is likewise misused once.
Rona struggles, day-by-day, not to fall back into her alcoholism. She meets with other people at rehab who long to overcome their addictions, including a guy who is overcoming an addiction to cocaine. While some days pass without incident, Rona notes that “the urge to drink can come out of nowhere.” Those days cause her sober journey the most turmoil. Elsewhere, a narrator describes the permanent damage that alcohol addiction can have on neural pathways, as well as detailing how alcohol affects the brain more generally.
The film illustrates the dangerous extent to which Rona’s drinking shapes her behavior and relationships. She hides liquor behind a bathroom sink, drinking it while making her boyfriend think she’s simply using the bathroom. She consumes the half-full bottles of bar that patrons after they’ve left. She’s surrounded by bottles, and she distances herself from her coworkers as she falls behind on work projects.
Not surprisingly, Rona is often intoxicated. She stumbles around and crashes into people and objects, even causing herself unintentional harm. While under the influence, she hops into a stranger’s car, unaware of his wicked plans. And she verbally abuses her boyfriend when he raises concerns for her well-being, claiming that he’s “trying to take control” of her and “judging her.”
Rona vomits profusely on a couple occasions. She urinates for a drug test. A man tells a story about intentionally defecating on someone’s bed. Rona helps a sheep give birth, pulling the baby lamb from its mother’s body.
People attend a rave, and the incredibly intense strobe lights in that scene may bother some viewers.
Addiction isn’t always something that can be fully overcome. Sometimes, it’ll have to be battled for life.
The Outrun provides no excuses for Rona’s addiction, the negative impact it has on her life (and others’ lives) or the consequences that result. But it does show us how deep its tendrils can sink. We witness firsthand how the long-lasting effects of substance abuse, even years after the last relapse, can suddenly strike once again. In other words, The Outrun is a tale of perseverance, not because overcoming addiction ever becomes easy, but because the fight for sobriety is something that’s better than settling for easy.
And on that note, I think Christian viewers can relate to this fight. Our struggle against sin can feel very much the same way—especially if we’ve allowed a compulsive habit to become deeply rooted. But, like Rona, though we may stumble, our compulsion does not give us a license to fall. Rather, we confess and repent, and we strive to continue in our sanctification once again, knowing that God is faithful to forgive us our sins (Matthew 18:21-22, 1 John 1:9).
That being said, The Outrun contains many elements—unrelated to alcoholism—that need to be considered. Some drunken violent moments (including an attempted rape), nudity and crude language all make this movie harder to watch. And though some may argue that such issues add context to the realistic depiction of alcohol addiction, they’re still issues that viewers will need to consider.
The Outrun won’t be for everyone. Honestly, I don’t even think it was for me. It’s slow. It’s filled with lovely shots of the Scottish islands, to be sure, but also with mundane moments that make the movie feel more aimless and artsy than it probably intended. It’s also a tough story, filled with content that’s beyond what many will want to see. But, at the very least, I can appreciate the effort put into showing genuine struggle against addiction.
Because, even if it’s something that’ll always be following Rona, chasing her down, it’s an admirable thing to watch her do all that she can to outrun it.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
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