“IT’S a massive weight that’s put on a lot of kids, to have responsibility for something that they shouldn’t really have to have responsibility for,” says Saoirse Ronan of how her character in The Outrun, recovering alcoholic Rona, has dealt with her father’s bipolar episodes since childhood and effectively becomes his carer in later life even as she struggles with her own addiction issues.
“Especially when they’re caring for parents, or have to take some of their pain away from them when they’re not fully formed yet, that has a lasting impact, and if care isn’t given to them at the time, all those feelings aren’t being processed properly.”
The US-born Irish actor adds: “I think it’s a really important time, especially now, where the numbers for mental illness are probably even higher than they have been before, and kids are sort of the target for that a lot of the time. There needs to be care and attention given to young carers, for sure.”
It’s rare to read a young woman writing about her experience with mental health and addiction, especially alcohol. It’s why Amy Liptrot wanted her 2016 memoir The Outrun to be a story as much about recovery as the painful experiences which led up it.
But the Scottish journalist and author, who wrote and lived alone on a remote Orkney island — her childhood home — to help her beat alcoholism and rebuild her life, is aware that this topic can come with its fair share of judgment and ill-informed misconceptions from loved ones and unsympathetic onlookers.
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Confronting the lack of awareness with grace, whilst sparing no details of degradation and recovery, was something director Nora Fingscheidt thinks Liptrot did really well in her bestselling book and hoped would translate to screen in a new film adaptation of the same name.
The Outrun, in which Ronan is playing a fictionalised version of Liptrot alongside English actor Paapa Essiedu as her boyfriend, Daynin, is about when the then 30-year-old author came to terms with her alcohol addiction after it had swallowed the previous decade of her life.
As the film reveals, the young woman turned to the healing power of nature: she started cold water swimming, tracking Orkney’s wildlife and searching the night sky for the Merry Dancers.
“I honestly [wanted to] explain what was going on, like, how you can, on one hand, want to be sober, but on the other hand still want to drink, and the reasons that people relapse and why it is so hard,” says Liptrot.
“Some most touching responses I’ve had have been from people who have read my book, or now starting to watch the film, and saying that it’s helped them to understand an addict that they know and to maybe have more compassion for that addict.”
“When you’re not somebody who’s directly affected by addiction, it’s very easy to say, ‘Well, now you’ve been sober [for] six months, get out, get a life… well done. Now move on’,” says Fingscheidt.
“Whereas the reality of the process of recovery is ongoing, and it goes in circles, and there are ups and downs, and sometimes after the rehab, after those three months, then the real hard time starts because then you’re by yourself,”
“How do you make sense of life and find happiness again? It can take years, and then it’s still one day at a time. I think it’s important to tell this recovery story, so there’s more respect towards this process. It’s not easy.”
This was a message driven by Rona throughout the film. Reckoning with her past was no easy feat whilst living with separated parents: an extremely religious born-again Christian mother, Annie, played by Saskia Reeves, and father Andrew, played by Stephen Dillane, who suffered from bipolar disorder and made her take on the role of a young carer.
The film also highlights the support needed for loved ones or anyone whose life is, or has been, affected by someone else’s drinking, regardless of whether that person is still drinking.
The Outrun uses other characters, including Daynin, to explore how this impact can play out, especially in romantic relationships. After countless empty promises and lashing out from Rona, Daynin eventually ends the relationship with an “I’m sorry” note he leaves on her bed.
“I think he walks away at that point in that way because it’s so difficult,” offers Essiedu.
“He so deeply, deeply, deeply wants to be there and help but a big part of this is his saviour complex and his desire to witness and believe that there is another stage in their relationship after this.
“To be confronted by the idea that it’s not happening today and it may not happen tomorrow or the next day is so difficult. I think he believes that he’s doing the kind thing by saying, ‘Look, you need to be able to figure this out by yourself’.
“It’s just too overwhelming for him to be in physical proximity [and have a] conversation with her as he’s doing it [leaving], because they’ve had that conversation time and time and time again.
“We even see it a few times in the movie. I don’t know if he trusts himself not to give into it again. So that’s the way he can do it, while he’s in control and knows he can put a full stop on it.”
When Orkney became a place of refuge for Liptrot, she started to explore her animal instincts, the folklore she grew up hearing, and the healing power of nature.
“I was beginning to have interests outside of myself, new things to write about, things like little missions to go on, to sort of give me purpose and to reconnect with the elemental place that formed me. So it was about going back to my roots, and looking at why I was the way I was,” says the writer.
So what advice would Liptrot give to other recovering alcoholics? “Take it slowly. Be gentle. It’s one day at a time, and it’s about building things up gradually, rather than smashing them down every weekend.”
