Saoirse Ronan hits rock bottom and then gets back up

Every movie alcoholic allows you to go down with them with a shotgun, and the lowest point where Saoirse Ronan’s character – her name is Rona – hits her head down Run is a factor of great influence. When we first meet her, she is thrown out of a pub in London because she stayed there long after closing time and even longer after she was welcomed. She flirtatiously crawls under tables and on top of the bar, drinking the remains of half-drunk pints left by previous customers. When the bouncer tries to escort her to the door, Rona becomes aggressive. When she gets kicked out and throws away half of her purse, she begins staggering towards her ex-boyfriend’s new apartment; he has just left the apartment they shared after reaching breaking point with her, which is the main reason for this particularly evil grifter. The man in the car offers to give her a ride. Foolishly, she agrees. The next time we see her, Rona is being examined in the ER, with a huge, bleeding gash above her right eye.

We’ll finally get the details of what happened between points A and B, and suffice it to say, it’s not pretty. The film allows us to follow several of Rona’s other forays into blackout, complete with violence, self-harm, and bridge burning. But the saddest thing happens right after the examination in the emergency room. She expressed a desire to undergo a drug rehabilitation program that forces patients to stay in a care facility. Her ex, Daynin (I can destroy you“Paapa Essiedou”) came to the hospital to make sure Rona was okay. They sit outside, smoke and catch up. It is obvious that she is still very much in love with Daynin. For a split second, reconciliation seems possible. They then hear the sounds of several brawlers leaving the tavern. And she asks: Would you like a quick drink? The look on his face tells you everything you need to know. It’s a story about a frog and a scorpion. Once again, Rona can’t help but sting.

Based on the memoir of the Scottish journalist Amy Liptrot from 2016 under the same title. Run tries to avoid staying too long on the way of the cross that characterizes most films about addiction, recovery and recovery. You see enough to know that Rona has a problem and needs to get serious help ASAP. Much of the film is devoted to her return to Orkney, where her divorced parents still live. Mom (Saskia Reeves) is a holy lunatic. Dad (Stephen Dillane) is a farmer, still farming the 150 acres of land where Rona grew up, and still struggling with the bipolar disorder that made her childhood so fraught. This is where he will try to stay sober and put the pieces of his life back together. Eventually, as the ghosts of her past push her towards a relapse, Rona will move to an even more remote part of the Northern Isles known as Papay, where she will live in a cottage and try to stay dry. “It’s never easy,” says her local shopkeeper, who has a dozen years of sobriety under his belt. “It just becomes less difficult.”

The danger with these types of films is that they too often devolve from stories of tragedy and triumph to something of an obstacle course for the actors – watch them overcome the dark nights of the soul, then complete part of a 12-step recovery before you will take a few steps back etc. There is no reason to think twice Run it will be different, especially in these early sequences; the fact that writer-director Nora Fingschiedt and Liptrot, who helped adapt her book to the screen, tell the story in a piecemeal, disjointed way that brings back memories of mornings bubbling to the surface just makes the course a little more tortuous than usual . However, they still had the lead in many situations where they could jump over, slide under, and run through.

So it’s a shock when you come to sense that Ronan is not only deftly maneuvering through every obstacle and obstacle, but also plotting his own path through this journey through hell to healing, all while keeping the humanity of Liptrot’s fight intact. She has always been an extremely talented actress, regardless of whether she participated in literary adaptations (Beautiful Bones, Atonement, Little Women, The tragedy of Macbeth), parables about coming of age (Lady Bird from Brooklyn), fragments from the era (Ammonite, upcoming Blitz) or the occasional high-quality genre film (Hanna, Byzantium). Here, Ronan manages to turn a familiar story into something of an epic about forgiveness. He knows when to hold back, letting a quiet moment on the beach or a furtive glance at a store shelf filled with bottles say all that needs to be said. And he knows when to unleash his rage, which is surprising in its unexpected intensity. Her words: “I can’t be happy sober” contain a whole story of fear, disgust and pain. He can tread lightly on the tightrope. She exudes emotion and empathy, even when she doesn’t seem to be doing anything at all.

Ronan cannot save Run from its limitations as drama or from its worst instincts in stacking the deck. But she elevates the film and infuses the story with a real sense of what it means to try to live one day at a time for the rest of your life. That she manages to accomplish all this without the “please take me seriously” feeling and without the air of performative despair that usually lends itself to consideration is, frankly, astonishing. It allows you to see a lost soul raging against the world from those initial moments, but still hovering over the person walking the difficult road ahead at the end. However, you also witness Rona striving for acceptance from this angry young woman because of Ronan. This person may not be able to outrun their inner alcoholic. But you walk away with the feeling that maybe she will finally be able to live with her.